A fruit and a woman at the same persimmon tree
where I scare the little birds off and climb
to catch the fruit like a boy and savour,
as I eat it up there, the sight of the woman
who stayed down there waiting for me to climb
and who I see now moving between the leaves,
with her eyes of honey, her dry shoulders,
while I contort my whole self as I rise
between tongues of the sun, the scratch of twigs,
until I reach and throw down to her,
at the highest point, the sweetest persimmon.
Fróes, Leonardo “The Catcher in the Persimmons”. Ottawa: FlipSide, 2017. p.01. Translation by Rob Packer.