Anita Patel (b. 1959)
SELECTED POEMS
So Much Fruit…
(for a Malaysian Grandmother in Australia)
You look so odd in this backyard
(for it is a backyard not a garden)
with its dusty lawn and barbeque,
long unused, lurking in the corner.
Surrounded by the splintery teeth
of a paling fence, you pause
under a tree purple heavy
with fruit.
Later in the kitchen your deft fingers
dance like butterflies—
wielding a pair of chopsticks in
a sizzling wok—conjuring the perfume
of a time long gone.
I show up at your door each afternoon
(sticky lipped, licking a banana paddle pop).
We step out among plums
split and syrupy, scattered on dry grass—
What to do with so much fruit?
This question never plagued you
when rambutans clustered,
crimson and fragrant,
in leafy branches on the tree
in your garden at home.
by Anita Patel
from A Common Garment (2019)
