Where the Gnarled Claw Grew
by Michelle Porter
(to gather: to understand; to harvest for food; to pick up from the ground )
A gnarled claw grew out of their dislocation in the shape
of a pear tree there behind a rusty chain-link fence and
discovered the children when all the branches were
beginning again with ravenous sirens of blossoms.
They wrapped each other’s fingers around the metal
chains, pressed their eyes to the gap between
to watch the tree in her strut, right there, on the other side.
They had nothing else to do. God, the sisters
on the day they chased them from the strawberry fields,
how their hunger had overwhelmed their desire
to be good and to follow the rules. That pear tree belonged
to no one, produced fruit for no farmer. They couldn’t bring
themselves to clamber over the fence so early, not while
the pears were hard and tight. They gaped: pears turn out
like this? They ripened in a cleft of weeks the sun couldn’t crack.
They didn’t know anything. The bees came
thick when the pears fell and their tender skins broke open.
The smell, a sweet that oozed in their fingers, left them
clumsy. They could hardly bear the anxiety of want. They knew
they could get into a world of trouble. Their hunger
cussed them out and led them on until the hot day
the fence couldn’t hold them back anymore and the
sharp children with their twig limbs scratched over
the barb wire, alert for the threat of an adult.
Oh, those pears: curving in toward their dark seeds
then filling out into fat hips; shades of green composed
as jars on a willing windowsill; faint brown speckles that
let slip the promise confined, the taste inside; juice that might
trickle. The bees shadowed them, lurching among
the pears and reeking of spiced liqueur and fermented sugar.
The sisters’ tongues spoke quick and greedy against
the forbidden pulp. They had witnessed how the swollen
fruit could learn to detach from tree and branch—how to
offer all that flesh and juice to one flight, no matter what
the fall and the struggle of grass might bring—how to cast off
the rot of confession and to worship the sultry spoil of summer.
Michelle Porter’s first book of poetry, Inquiries, was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award for Best Book of Poetry in Canada in 2019. Approaching Fire is her newest book – a creative nonfiction exploration of the history of her great-grandfather, who was a Métis fiddler. She is a citizen of the Métis Nation and member of the Manitoba Metis Federation. She currently lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.