Chirimoya
Custard apple. Sweetsop. Guanabana.
Mostly, it’s the human heart,
its skin – green or yellow, thick or thin –
marked as if moulded
by the fingers of everyone who touched it.
Picked too soon, it gives a little
under pressure, is easily broken into
or cut open to a snowscape
studded with hard black seeds
that are pure poison when crushed,
yet this morning, it’s the earth-rise
of a newly-discovered planet,
a world of fragrant sweetness
whose orbit crosses yours for just long enough.
*Matt Merritt’s second full collection is hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica. His debut full collection, Troy Town, was published by Arrowhead in 2008. He lives near Leicester, works as a wildlife journalist, and blathers about poetry, birds and cricket at Polyolbion .
