On a Day of Still Heat

In the still heat
         a breadfruit ripens:
a multitude of tiny sunspots
         mounted on hexagonal platelets,
green leather skin
         and flesh of kneadable custard.

In the breadfruit
         is hidden the sun,
in the sun
         the breadfruit.
Before the heat reaches Earth,
         the flames have already died;
before being picked,
         the breadfruit is already rotten.

And all the unpurchaseable luxuries
         - beetles, thunder, pebbles, twigs -
whose lives say, simply,
         I accept,
are hidden in each other
         and hide all things.

© James Charlton