{"id":49,"date":"2012-01-10T18:23:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-10T18:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=49"},"modified":"2012-01-10T18:23:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-10T18:23:00","slug":"matt-merritts-chirimoya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/matt-merritts-chirimoya\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Merritt's 'Chirimoya'"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chirimoya<\/span>

Custard apple. Sweetsop. Guanabana.<\/span>
Mostly, it\u2019s the human heart,\u2028\u2028<\/span>

its skin \u2013 green or yellow, thick or thin \u2013 <\/span>
marked as if moulded\u2028\u2028<\/span>

by the fingers of everyone who touched it.<\/span>
Picked too soon, it gives a little\u2028<\/span>

under pressure, is easily broken into<\/span>
or cut open to a snowscape\u2028<\/span>

studded with hard black seeds<\/span>
that are pure poison when crushed,\u2028\u2028<\/span>

yet this morning, it\u2019s the earth-rise<\/span>
\u2028of a newly-discovered planet,\u2028\u2028<\/span>

a world of fragrant sweetness<\/span>
\u2028whose orbit crosses yours for just long enough.<\/span>




*Matt Merritt<\/span>\u2019s second full collection is <\/span>hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica<\/span>. His debut full collection, <\/span>Troy Town<\/span>, was published by Arrowhead in 2008. He lives near Leicester, works as a wildlife journalist, and blathers about poetry, birds and cricket at <\/span>Polyolbion<\/a> . <\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ChirimoyaCustard apple. Sweetsop. Guanabana.Mostly, it\u2019s the human heart,\u2028\u2028its skin \u2013 green or yellow, thick or thin \u2013 marked as if moulded\u2028\u2028by the fingers of everyone who touched it.Picked too soon, it gives a little\u2028under pressure, is easily broken intoor cut open to a snowscape\u2028studded with hard black seedsthat are pure poison when crushed,\u2028\u2028yet this morning, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}