Persimmon from Woolston New World

imagine your waxed case teeth-torn, a

blood-orange across a harvest moon

a satisfying weight in the palm of your hand.

your crown curls heart-shaped leaves gleefully

out of the underworld: a calyx. And it is said

that your flesh bears bitter-acrid ignorance

through to sweet wisdom in maturity.

A glut of abundance since the death of god.

Seed roots in the shape of a spoon

suggest a snowy winter ahead.

A knife, icy. Fork and it will be mellow.

When dried you frighten striped tigers

a slink of black and then on either side:

that colour of your ripe skin again.

Jasmine Gallagher

Jasmine Gallagher is a poet, essayist, art critic and doctoral candidate at the University of Otago, where she is researching landscape mythology in contemporary New Zealand art and poetry. Her work has been published by or is forthcoming in: The Pantograph Punch, Landfall, Art New Zealand, Sweet Mammalian, Mayhem, Minarets ‘ANNEXE’, brief, The Physics Room, Journal of New Zealand Literature, #500words, Food Court X Salty ‘HAUNTS’, Cheap Thrills and CIRCUIT. She also writes art exhibition catalogue texts, with the most recent being a prose poem for Tyne Gordon’s show Visitor at CoCA Christchurch.

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