Plums

Carousing shades of purple,
Lips smacking flesh, juicy and
Lilac, just a dust of gray.

Rotten, unremembered by bees,
Passed over for jam, you hang
Translucent. Threads connecting
yellow polka dots on trees,
Like a dress I wore long ago.
I've wondered for weeks when your
Tenacity would succumb
To gravity, heaped with snow.
The amber ice cubes, one by one,
Plop to the ground and stay there
As if too stubborn to melt.
They fall where they once began.

Transfigured by darkness and rain,
Faded colors, wrinkled skin,
Fragile as a paper chain.

          SUSAN MALINOSKY