Ripening
by L. Drake

When the ripe apricot

hot with three o’clock sun

fleshy cheeks taut

pregnant with its future

poised to be something else

ready to dent or disappear

finally drops

will you — in love

with its shape and symmetry —

wish it back to its branch

to be what it’s not

or will you pluck it

from its bed of mottling leaves

wrap your mouth around it

wash your tongue and fingers in its juice

tease out half its body with your teeth

leave the rest for a deer

or a family of ants

and its perfect crown to rot?

~

L. Drake is a farm-grown poet and mountain-raised psychotherapist. Nourished by her career, time in nature, growing what can be grown in sand, meditation and embodiment practices, she’s currently rebalancing her diet by adding in lots more vitamin P(oetry). Drake’s undergraduate education was in creative writing; she studied with acclaimed poets who also taught in her state school’s esteemed MFA program. Why she didn’t submit her work to publishers before turning 50 is a question she’s turned to the wisdom of her on-call, personal analyst — the creative process — to answer.

~

Artist Note: “Ripening” ripened on a flight home after a retreat. For months, I balanced on a pinpoint between the saturated contentment and refined mental states that I experience(d) through deep meditative absorption and a surging of my sexuality and sensuality as a queer, perimenopausal woman. Desiring profound, celebratory, and multi-layered intimacy before the natural process of drying up would begin, I, with the energy of a defiant teenager and the wisdom of an elder who knows to respect nature, pushed against the half-real, half-imagined pressure that I should be pursuing celibacy.

~

Featured image: Photo by Olga Nayda, 2019.