Poetry: Acorns and Akebi

My mother says in Jersey she’d find my pockets full of acorns, overflowing on my walk from school their nubbin caps and hard brown shells like the wood of my school desk, my nose pressed into it, eyes lost in the meaningless pattern of faux chestnut grain now looking down to ground searching for acorns so delightfully alien to a small boy from Texas like evidence of elves.

Yesterday I was given アケビ fiveleaf akebia, or, strangely, chocolate vine, its green skin split down middle like a banana, its soft saucy pulp a sweet tang, like pear

steeped in long summer lore. Akebi is everywhere

I’m told, as the old nod, as if my eating it is totally expected, they too have stuffed their pockets. But many children don’t eat it, they say, for its strange feeling–a great loss I think for something so sweet.

I cast aside too many sweet things, overflowed for the sake of filled pockets. Where did the acorns fall on my walks from home, and where is the taste of akebi to a boy past growing with empty pockets?