Asimina triloba —Pawpaw tree; fruit. Photo credit: Scott Bauer, USDA. (Public domain)

by Keith Taylor

 

for my daughter

The large brown paw-paw seeds
evolved, perhaps, to be carried
in the guts of our megafauna,
our mammoths and mastodons,
our giant sloths, all long gone.

So we do our duty for biodiversity
when we pick the fruit fallen
on the sidewalk close to the park,
just before the ants get to it.
We’re not really stealing, are we?

At home we split it down the middle
like a hot-dog bun, dig out the seeds,
then use a spoon to scoop the spongy meat
of the fruit, soft and tropical,
our Michigan banana, mango custard.

We save the smooth brown seeds.
We plan to keep them over winter.
We’ll plant them below our oaks
to give paw-paw to our neighborhood
long after we, too, are gone.

 

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Keith Taylor worked as a bookseller for many years and taught in writing programs at the University of Michigan. His poems and prose have been published widely, including twenty poetry collections and chapbooks.

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This is an original poem, brought to you by Poet Tree Town, a Washtenaw-based poetry-in-public initiative and celebration of local poets. Find out more about Poet Tree Town on Instagram and Facebook, or say hello at [email protected].