January's Juices

Strawberries

In their miniature plastic
greenhouse boxes in super-
markets, they protest with
furry mould, and withhold
the sweetness they can put out
if grown permaculturally on
happy land that welcomes juice,
in the loving hands of real earth.

January's Juices

Figs

I've got my eye on that grove
of fulsome trees along
Lerderderg Gorge Road.
Please don't tell everyone!
I want to fill baskets, boil with
sugar, have jam on hand all year.
My own fig tree, a mere stick,
wilts in summer's dry heat.

January's Juices

Quinces

In friends' garden they begin
to burgeon. In town, here,
on a lone tree in no-man's-land
they look reluctant - insisting on
being scrawny, green, hard
impossible to associate
with jam, jelly, spread
made by friends' ageing Dad.

January's Juices

Grapes

I prefer them trodden on,
fermented, bottled. As a child
I learned not to swallow pips
and seeds.This gave me a prejudice
I'm only overcoming at sixty.
Let me freshen the bunch
in the fridge for you, and together
we can trample them with our teeth.

January's Juices

Nectarines

Twin orbs, undersized,
they sat with large lemons,
bright limes, for days.
I thought them unripe.
Today, the smaller one
is furred with mould.
I plucked the other -
surprise! how sweet!

January's Juices

Pawpaw

Coles is fruitless.Vainly
seeking tropical juicies
I also shun the temperate.

Where are the fruits
of the hot wet gods?
Nothing can match
the rich flesh, beaded
seeds of ripe pawpaw.

January's Juices

Pineapple

Recovery depends on
the magical enzyme
concealed in this elixir.
Invisible vitamins invade
weakened cells, vanquish
demons in the blood. This
fruit seems to enjoy
being pulped and drunk.

January's Juices

Canteloupe

Served as a platter of canoes
all prow and bow and stern,
this sweet wet candy wraps
itself around your mouth, licks
your cheeks, chin and lips,
like a tide, an ocean,
a wave that dries even as
it leaves you beached.

January's Juices

Banana

The odd one out
of tropical fruit, reliant
on at most creamy
generally dry texture.

Conscious of ads where
sexy lips massage
chocolate bars, I chop
it into bite-sized pieces.

January's Juices

Watermelon

On cool days it languishes
in the fridge, begins to run
too silken and slippery to
contemplate eating as
temperatures rise, and must be
jettisoned. I have learned
to swallow the pips, regret
the waste, eat ice cream instead.

January's Juices

Cherries

At Mackenzie's Flat - hot dry air
stony riverbed, eucalypts shedding
bark and leaf urgently, ants dancing
on my toes and ankles, someone's
handbag covered! in them, and we
hadn't brought bathers, could only
wish we were wet.  But we agreed:
the cherries made up for everything.

January's Juices

Lemons

Taut and tart in Spring
slices in water to savour
fish flavours to capture
hook line and sinker fruit.

In Summer, lumpy, enlarged,
ungainly,and refusing to drop
they offer pectin and sweet
lemonade: cream of the crop. 

January's Juices

Apples

Difficult small balls
hard as hatred's fist
in the heart, they do yet
promise to swell and soften:
you can imagine holding
the blushing buttocky orbs
while lips, teeth and tongue
become involved with skin
and sweet white flesh.

January's Juices

Plums

At the edge of vision and
straining teeth's tolerance
they glow in syrup, cunning
as hearts or elderly minds
seeming to shrivel while
actually swelling to fill
that drought-stricken part
of your fruit-salad soul.