White Cherries

White lie: they aren’t white; they bloom in
blushing beiges, yellows, brush-stroked reds
and pinks – next to all their burgundy-dark
cousins they would seem to be a questionable
treat: they are as if the unripe children of the ones
we think we like to eat: in fact, they symbolize
delicious parts of summer of which no one
speaks: those dimmer things which sleep and wake

in shadowed subtlety – not the rabid raging heat
and volubility of bursting self-exposure –
like those sexy cheeks and breasts of plums
and peaches and the rest which vie for prizes,
trap our eyes – these are the shyer bits of season
which retire to the backward bin and wait for us
to deign to let them in – as I did yesterday,
today, and will tomorrow – bought them from

a Muslim produce vendor on First Avenue –
a purchase which ensued upon my having just
got buzz-cut by a Russian Jew. White cherries
are my ticket to the hybrid synchrony of late July:
they seem precipitated from its humid tart/sweet sky;
I celebrate their mottled influence – this metaphoric
fruit of New York City heterogeneity which feeds
me so completely that it almost makes me cry.

.