Where the Gnarled Claw Grew

by Michelle Porter

 

(to gather: to understand; to harvest for food; to pick up from the ground )

A gnarled claw grew out of their dislocation in the shape 
of a pear tree there behind a rusty chain-link fence and

discovered the children when all the branches were 
beginning again with ravenous sirens of blossoms. 

They wrapped each other’s fingers around the metal
chains, pressed their eyes to the gap between 

to watch the tree in her strut, right there, on the other side. 
They had nothing else to do. God, the sisters 

on the day they chased them from the strawberry fields, 
how their hunger had overwhelmed their desire 

to be good and to follow the rules. That pear tree belonged 
to no one, produced fruit for no farmer. They couldn’t bring

themselves to clamber over the fence so early, not while 
the pears were hard and tight. They gaped: pears turn out 

like this? They ripened in a cleft of weeks the sun couldn’t crack. 
They didn’t know anything. The bees came 

thick when the pears fell and their tender skins broke open. 
The smell, a sweet that oozed in their fingers, left them 

clumsy. They could hardly bear the anxiety of want. They knew 
they could get into a world of trouble. Their hunger 

cussed them out and led them on until the hot day
the fence couldn’t hold them back anymore and the

sharp children with their twig limbs scratched over 
the barb wire, alert for the threat of an adult. 

Oh, those pears: curving in toward their dark seeds 
then filling out into fat hips; shades of green composed 

as jars on a willing windowsill; faint brown speckles that
let slip the promise confined, the taste inside; juice that might

trickle. The bees shadowed them, lurching among 
the pears and reeking of spiced liqueur and fermented sugar. 

The sisters’ tongues spoke quick and greedy against 
the forbidden pulp. They had witnessed how the swollen

fruit could learn to detach from tree and branch—how to
offer all that flesh and juice to one flight, no matter what 

the fall and the struggle of grass might bring—how to cast off 
the rot of confession and to worship the sultry spoil of summer. 


Porter+Michelle+photo.jpg

Michelle Porter’s first book of poetry, Inquiries, was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award for Best Book of Poetry in Canada in 2019.  Approaching Fire is her newest book – a creative nonfiction exploration of the history of her great-grandfather, who was a Métis fiddler. She is a citizen of the Métis Nation and member of the Manitoba Metis Federation. She currently lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.  

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