PLUM SLOPE

Fruit does not heal
once a dull bruise,
soft spot, fall from hand
has made its flesh mealy.

On bad days I would find
that my mother had packed
my yellow lunchbox full
of plums. On good days
there would also be
a thermos of juice.

I came home after one bad
day to find her in the kitchen,
told her I had learned about
cells, that I could see my own,
see them in the skins of the plums.
She looked at me terrified
and left me alone
so that in the thicket
of our backyard I found
our missing cat, dead
and knitted to the slope
of the hillside with no one
there to be her witness except me
and I had yet to learn
what grief was for.