Jan Lee Ande

Selected poems from Reliquary

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Lazarus Called from the Cave | Ode to the Avocado | The Annunciation of Francis

Ode to the Avocado

Coddled in my palm, bigger than a hen's egg,
your bumpy black skin holds soft flesh and a seed
round and heavy as a stone.

If I take toothpicks and prop the seed in a jar of water,
leaves will rise up on tall slender stems
smelling a little like black licorice.

Seven years must pass, after the planting
and pollination, after perhaps some grafting, before
the fruit hangs pendulous from your limbs.

Your small flowers have no petals, six lobes,
nine stamens in (sets of three), an ovary with one cell.
You are a bloom of numerology,

mysterious seed of occult meanings, grown
ten thousand years in the soil of Mexico.
Green testicle. Alligator pear. Glossy tropical fruit.

Diced, I toss you with tomato, cilantro, garlic and lime.
In Rangoon a shopwoman made drinks of banana,
avocado and steamed milk in a blender left from the raj.

I sipped the thick liquid from a chipped glass.
Young men walked by, slim and dusky
in their tamays, with Burmese gemstones to trade.

On street corners soldiers cradled machine guns
and everyone was afraid of strangers.
The drink was healing, a medicinal for the spirit.

Yet dark green fruit, such a reputation you have--tonic
of potency, aphrodisiac. How hard the old growers
worked to sell you to a shamefaced gringos.

Peeling back your ripened skin, I lift the seed
from its secret hollow with my thumb and fingertips.
Your green flesh tastes smooth as butter on the tongue.

© Jan Lee Ande 2007