And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet.
And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it. (Mark 11:13-14)
Where I find the wild city fox
disentangled from its body
by a passing Subaru -
and that body splayed like petals
on a marriage bed -
the honey locust sways and girds herself
in her royal skirt of thorns.
The berry patch, the poison ivy
in the yard across the way (the corner house)
is tended apophatically
by an ancient woman’s ignorance: her gnarled nose
turns only for her roses.
Watered, plucked, or disregarded,
the fence of thorns that wrangles light
outside her narrow vision’s track
(the hedge that separates her from
her memories of blood and fox)
produces deadly fruit of perfect beauty.
A poignant picture of this world that groans for new creation.
This is a really good one.