“Original Ruse” by Barbara Sabol

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i

No apple was worth the risk, not even
an Asian pear apple, the snappish bite
and comely shape, like a sister.
(Besides she had no map to locate Japan,
no dictionary to look up exotic.)

Even a Gala, succulent as a cooltongued
French kiss, was better left
to glow pinkly on that one cordoned-off tree.
(There was that problem of a map, and
no produce catalog.)

Bored by his puny repertoire of stories, small
store of words to describe the world
(always jabbering: birds, look, monkeys, funny,
again? perfect, perfect), she wandered

out past the orchard, to the garden’s reaches,
only seeking quiet, space to consider
the real meaning of perfection.
(Convenient, the lack of a dictionary.)

But he was always after her, a constant
annoyance. You can imagine. She longed to
drink her coffee in peace, an occasional morning.
It didn’t seem like a selfish entreaty.

ii

Past the rows of self-tilling beans, yellow melons fattening
in the heat, the flowers she knew from their odor (naming them
herself – orchid, narcissus, skunk cabbage),
.                                                             she discovered something new:

She knew the genus instinctively: Nightshade, lovely word.
She also fathomed that plants in this family could be toxic.
But that fragrance – perfumed dirt, musky green,
summer-downpour-heat-lightning pungent –
.                                                            irresistible.

And it fell so easily from the vine.

iii

He had followed her there, found her
warming this blood-red globe in her palm.
He watched as she pressed her nose to the stem,
breathed it in with a kind of rapture
he’d never witnessed.

So, after a small bite, just a nick
in the soft skin, after coddling it
against her palate, then grabbing the nearest limb
for balance, she had no choice
but to hand it over.

–Barbara Sabol,
Original Ruse
(Accents Publishing)

Barbara SabolBarbara Sabol’s poetry and prose has appeared in Public-Republic, Blood Lotus, Poets 350, the Tupelo Press Poetry Project,Tributaries, and on the Akron Art Museum’s website. She has an MFA from Spalding University. Barbara is a long-practicing speech therapist, living in northeastern Ohio with her partner and dogs.

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