Wild Plum, by Jane Hirshfield
A gray squirrel tests each plum with his nose,
moving from one to another
until he feasts.
It is like watching the ego,
moving from story to story.
A man is proud of his strong brown teeth,
though all his children have died.
This tree the one he was given,
its small, sustaining fruit, some green, some yellow.
Pits drop to the ground,
a little moistness clings in the scorings.
The left-behind branches
winch themselves silently upward,
as if released from long sorrow.
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