Quince
Quince
It’s not easy to peel the grubby yellow skin
from a knuckle of quince and even with a sharp knife
the paring is difficult. You stack the slices
so they crowd together on pallid pastry,
as anaemic as refugees on a forced march.
The names of camps pop unmusically
into your mind: Treblinka, S-21,
Estadio Nacional. What creative impulse
turns an orchard into a concentration camp?
Will you and I finally turn away
from the oven of our own making,
to cook something wholesome and sustaining?
O long sonnet, late volta, in the ceramic dish
the pie is all goodness, the steaming,
rose-coloured quince sits on the spoon
as if it can already hear the applause.
Andy Kissane
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