William Carlos Williams' Plums

William Carlos Williams’ lips
twitch as he turns away, reaches blindly
for his screeled scrawled notebook,
his cheap blue pen.
We have the plums, and eat them slowly
sharing each one, letting cold clear juice
run down our chins and sun-warmed throats.
It is summer outside, but here so cool,
this clean kitchen tiled in white and blue.
Our cold tongues lap the juice off hot skin,
the faint tinge of sweat mingling in the taste.
Like little cold washcloths your tongue on me,
like rough blue silk from a freezer,
like tiny industrious hands.
The sun is still beneath your skin,
you glow in this dim kitchen.
The plums gone now, we roll the pits
around in our mouths like marbles.
They are still sweet, still cool, still smooth.

The indistinct light surrounds
your flesh, the play of muscles as you,
shirtless, place the plum pits on the counter.
Shoulder, bicep, arm and wrist and oh the hand
you are a ripple, a liquid flow.
The plum pits are dark against the white counter,
your hand against my pale dress.

Tile at my back cools fevered skin,
trees shadow the blue-draped window.
The scent of plums, heady, heavy
in your breath on me.
William Carlos Williams stares at a Bruegel
in the dining room, unwilling
to look our way, unwilling to hear the cool echoes,
to see our clothes like plum blossoms on the floor.

~