We used to practise kissing on plums. There was a way to hold them. The middle finger and the thumb fitted into the hollow at either end. We'd close our eyes and slowly press our lips to the tight flesh, smearing the dust and warming the fruit with our breath. Once we'd mastered that, we cut out a divot with a penknife and explored the innards with our tongues. The thing to do was put the tip against the shrivelled kernel. Right inside. That was doing it properly. That was how a girl would like it. What she would expect you to do.

We kissed so well we left the things in tatters. Shreds of maroon skin peeled back off the yellow beneath. Juice twisting around our forearms and pearling at the bone of the elbow.  Pieces of half eaten fruit under the tree in the light and the grass.

When the evening comes, I think about that. I go to the drawer and take out my old penknife, that jar of plum stones, stopped with a cork bung. I cast them like runes across the table. I use a fingernail to tease out the blade of the penknife, feeling the spring mechanism inside the walnut handle take over. The cat stirs, notices its reflection in the window. Its tongue rasps my fingertips, searching for the ancient fruit it can smell somewhere.

 

© Andrew Michael Hurley 2009