- Carly Feinman
Day 2- 9.18.20
September
In Berkeley, in September
the leaves do not change and fall
the way they do in Brooklyn.
Here, they hang on, tired but stubborn,
as if refusing to go down
for autumn's nap.
Here, leaves are still copious and high,
layered thick like a deck of cards,
shrouding fruits with hues
straight from Monet's brush--
the orange-bellied persimmons growing wide,
fat green apples, lemons with bumpy navels,
figs turning a bruised purple, red berries deepening
to black, swollen golden pears and
pomelos, heavy overhead
with their sour rinds;
it's these, the pomelos, that make me stop
in my tracks, the pomelos
rotund with juice
hanging with mysterious dignity
pulling branches into downward curves before
smashing to gravel,
to a driveway surveyed
by an old, grey cat.
I step over the carcasses,
splayed open, oyster-like,
trampled and warm,
the pungent flesh squelching
into pavement cracks.
Why is it
that this smell
of fruit rotting on the sidewalk
sends me back to days with my dad
raking leaves
in New York?