“not knowing is most intimate…”
“Christine Smart’s poems perform acts of clear-eyed unsentimental recollection and fierce longing, and move with an earthy music that is all their own. The reader is left with a sense of the sharp, bittersweet tang of the authentic.”
Don McKay
HARVEST
The light burns yellow
and the air smells of ash.
Tumescent purple plums,
firm and full of promise.
A plum bursts sweet
and warm on my tongue.
Dusky and ripened in the sun,
the juice purples lips, drips down
my chin, cool and tart in my belly,
the pit, ridged as my heart.
Half purple moons, toss the pits,
the inner core released. Arrange
crescents on sweet batter, add
sifted cinnamon sugar and heat.
Plums soften red as blood,
sweet and sour as my tongue.
Fill the basket, cut and pit
the hard nuggets, seeds
like losses excised and thrown
in the compost. Pack
fruit in sugar syrup,
fill jars to the brim and cap.
Boil in a water bath, the heat
turns darkness brilliant red,
mouths bruised
with longing.
Shortlisted for the Federation of BC Writers Poetry Contest 2022
published in Roots to Branches Vol II, 2024.