Rotting love

By Magnolia Fay

Fri, 16 Dec 2022
  • 632 reads
2 comments
 

When you first came into my life
You brought gifts of golden cheer
Crunchy fragrant Autumn leaves

So, I kept you with me
As a relic of the harvest
A memento of bounty

I held you there, untouched
Until your beacon flickered
Your fragrance turned acrid

I cut your soul open to salvage
Crumbs and chunks of golden memories
I found them brown and spongy, decomposing

Heavy-hearted, I composted us
With the apple cores and eggshells
Go fertilise a more fecund future love

Certificate U
Poem
Poetry
Love

Comments

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

We have a friend to whom we deliver a dinner once a week, and he has a quince tree at his gate, and cannot use the fruit. So we brought home quite a lot and cooked and froze them for winter puddings (especially mixed with apples). Then one day we realised there were still a lot there, so collected quite a pile more to work on. Out of a big bagful I got about 10 little pieces. They were all rotting inside! And they filled the indoor compost bin. But they didn't have a heart shape. Just looked so promising with little browning on the outside!. I suppose the metaphor is that some things and people can look unpromising on the outside, but have hearts of gold, or vice versa! Rhiannon

 

Submitted by Magnolia Fay on

Thank you for sharing this anecdote, Rhiannon! Yes, quinces are very sneaky in that regard. They can look perfectly fine on the outside and have a lot of brown inside. When the brown comes to the surface, it's normally too late. It's a lot of work to find good quinces, but I love them when they're good, perhaps ever so slightly unripe. I'm the only person I know who eats them raw! 

Yeah, you never really know from the outside what to expect, do you? 

Magnolia Fay