Green Pepper

GREEN PEPPER / Margaret Gibson At the stem, at the breaking point, a hard fray of cellulose narrows, as if someone tied it off with a thread and dipped it in iodine. Below this point of harvest, the stem flares to a sombrero of sorts at the base of six green hills. This dream of a green southwest just fits into my palm, planes that swell to a finished surface of oil and wax and silk. Oasis, omphalos— the idea of water spills in. My fingertips trace each yield and slide of pepperskin north and south, a surge into shadow and line, shoulders and buttocks. In the world of the pepper, Tm plural, polymorphous, perverse as a play of light in the original void. And you, so silent, abstracted . . . if across the polished table I roll this green pepper, if I call it the philosopher's stone, will you hold it to your ear and listen? Inside there are whispers, whatever you want to have whispered. Or else the opposite—laws of energy, a premise for desire so pure we shy back to the more familiar. You smile. You take the pepper, with your thumbnail cut in it a window. The flesh of the pepper is crisp. Without tasting it, I know it is sweet. And inside? A cluster beneath time and surface, prior to it—the white koan of seeds and stars. 206 · The Missouri Review ...