Passion Fruit

Passiflora edulis, var. flavicarpa

As many times as I’ve drunk the pulp-flecked, almost clear juiceor imagined the sweet ichor of its essence distilledonto an elegant schnapps sipped onstage by bluesmen, linen-clothed,their Dobro strings slackened to a loose

key, I’d never seen its gargantuan floweruntil a close-up came in a Facebook message —Blind-boy, Look, it’s liliko‘i from my backyard — and something edgedup next to me, an ascent through inner phloem, a puzzling power

of a thing, reaching from that tendrilous explosion,starburst of pea-green floats, constellationswithin a god’s-eye of purple shadow thickening into lashes      darkened with mascara —this Passiflora edulis, var. flavicarpa.

Glamorous vibratos of color, consumed within intricacies of a cake-white  drizzle . . .I was sent galloping in purple tangles, my skin scarified on the fine teeth of  vines,drunk with its gleaming, yellow goblets, Polynesian islesin a garland, forgetting all the times

trunk and limbs were a chiastic hive for bees bouncing in rhythm      amidst green thrashes,clenching in the throat of a white moon, a silky oozeon all the cupped flowers of the earth, passionsa white blaze of solitude. Drenched mash of purple dews,

you beguile no one except who drinks of your radiant hymns,your oyster pulp tinged with magentas of gladness, who hearsthat morning glory voice, your loosestrife of madness, your ivory stringsstrummed to a jasmined noise that drips colorless tears through tropical air.