Plums
- Plums
My father wraps plumswith newspapers.I cut the pages in half.He wraps the plums.We are in the attic.It’s summer.We don’t talk.He rolls the fruits,his fingers twist both ends of the paper.
It’s raining outside.
The plums look like wrapped candy.He is meticulous, not too meticulous, just enough.The plums have to be without nicks or cuts,firm, not too ripe, unblemished.
The storms have been coming all afternoon.That’s why my father is home;he couldn’t go to the fields.
He ties the plums with a thin string,like a necklace.Five plums in each string, exactly five.I don’t know why.His hands inspect the fruit, twist the paper,tie the knots, do the math.I hide my hands under the newspapers.He is on a ladder now.He hangs the strings from a wooden beam in the ceiling. [End Page 161]
I pass the strings to him.One by one.Sometimes, unintentionally,my hand brushes his hand.He leans his body against the ladder,rests for a moment,cleans his sweat.My father is old.The strings dangle from the ceiling.Plums in-waiting like dull,modest Christmas ornaments.Fruit for the winter, he says.As if you could wrap the summer with newspapers.As if you could wrap your father’s handsfor the future days of hunger. [End Page 162]
Zaro, Mariano earned a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Granada (Spain), and M.A. in Literature from the University of Zaragoza. He conducts poetry workshops and teaches Spanish for Heritage Speakers at Rio Hondo College in California, and is a translator of creative works. He publishes short stories and poetry. Some of his books include: Where From/Desde Donde (Bay Books, Santa Monica, 1995), Poems of Erosion/Poemas de la erosión (Carayan Press, San Francisco, 2003), The House of Mae Rim/La casa de Mae Rim (Carayan Press, San Francisco, 2009), and Tres letras/Three Letters (Walrus/Morsa, Barcelona, 2012). In 2004 he received the Roanoke Review Short Fiction Prize.
