tribute to asian pears

I. chinese tooth fairy

before my dad at age ten
lost his mom to lymphoma
he got a tooth pulled
and cried and cried in pain 

on their walk home
his ma ma bought him an asian pear which
in Nanchang they usually saved for 
New Years as a delicacy 

II. my grandma speaks to her older sister

let me hold your folded hand
I’d rather my fingers curl for good
if it meant yours would unfold
and the tremors would stop

feel me brush your eyelids

let my cold fingers transfer 
freshness to your eyes caked with 
dried yellow residue and
let the faint smile on your lips spread

my daughter and granddaughter whom I
pulled out of bed, still jetlagged, at 6 am 
to see you and now my daughter’s eyes are filling 

she is remembering that time you snuck her an asian pear
she was still a little girl and 

you told her not to tell
her cousins (your own children)

asian pears were expensive and

you had only one to give

III. my roommate cuts us fruit

she is allergic to most pears
except those giant asian pears
of which her mom dropped off two

in our kitchen the fluorescent light
melts into warmer yellow lampglow
where we gather by the dining table

heads buried eyebrows furrowed
necks craned down to absorb 
body parts on screens and books

I sense a fruit bowl emerge
filled with sliced asian pears and
when I pick up a wedge I am startled by its size

my roommate cut them large on purpose
better for sharing, she says

From the author: "tribute to asian pears" is a series of 3 short poems about asian pears! They are all true stories that involve a motif of an asian pear and how it has emerged in stories about family, loss, and generosity. These poems don't have anything immediate to do with color, except I guess the color yellow that is associated with asian pears as well as the warm yellow lamp glow in the third poem "my roommate cuts us fruit."

“tribute to asian pears” was first published in The Pool Magazine.

autumn on earth

night crickets linger into the noon sun
their chirps amplify the still fall air
calling of time lost outside in green

lost time better spent—
leaning on maple trunks
dipping toes into chilly lake water
soaking sun rays turning hair gold 

adolescent green leaves 
mature into 
yellow adulthood
but the strangely dry season 
coaxes 
premature browning

skin cracked, the elderly surrender
I believe we are all astronauts
in a spaceship at light speed
remaining youthful, spry, ignorant

we look back at the blue green sphere 
that ages too quickly during our 
blissful departure from down-to-earth

I wonder if our children will still hear
crickets call past their morning bedtime

I wonder if we will be crickets
searching for lost time that 
should have been spent on earth

From the author: "autumn on earth" is a poem I wrote after hiking near Storm King mountain in an attempt to see New England fall foliage. It was really striking to me how dry the leaves looked this year and how that dulled the vibrancy of the colors that you'd usually expect to see on changing leaves. I tried to work themes around aging, climate change, and space travel into the poem.