Fruit Poem by Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu

Less deciduous than the rest of the tropical fruits,
Almond,
Wayward Almond of parched wine of Burgundy,
You were forbidden...

The forbidden fruit of Shell Camp,
How are thy crimson mesocarps?
Traipses to Alvan never were in vain.
Clustering in cloyed versions of yielding
Balls, budding breasts of frayed boughs,
You stared down in complacence
At the twitching gullets of rolling string.

About the hour of split noon, weaned and
Bamboozled by aching genesis of tintinnabulation,
Mrs. Kate Njoku clapped and hollered,
Resuming the essence of assemblage
Gone stale like the dregs of stolen palm.
Inebriated still were our eyes, coruscated by
Pleading mercies.

O'Almond,
We all yearned for your fruitful balance,
Cracking the hardened yolk of your bliss,
Your virginity wrecked by stones and buried pillows
Of earth, the slabs of external fossils.
Hewed to flaxen fiber of thread effects, we
Searched for subtle essences of your endocarp.
The whited settlement of yore within your hegemony
Of fruited eclipse, O' Almond, led us astray while
Exchanging banters of communal hymns.

O'Almond,
Ripened testicles of high flung stems,
Smudging cantankerous lips with the
Redness of a ponce's charge,
How do we restrain such lusts for your flesh?