Last Fig

POETRY

By Rebecca Findlay

Take it. Soft. It won’t last in the bowl, best to accept it now. You’ll have to share it with the ants (they were the sign of ripe readiness, rearing up in the openings), but I’ve pulled off as many as I could. I’ll watch it split under your teeth and lips: fig skin like real skin, skin skin, like yours, pliant and thin lit like van Gogh grapes, from within, with green blue vein stripes up the side, pink flesh punctuated with paper bag slits and claret of jagged ostiole, tongue darting out to gather from the gash, juice, pip, and pulp that once was flowers, once was wasp.