Scuppernongs

They ripened to myth on her tongue, sweetness
always beyond reach, out there at the edge
of abandoned farms, back in the thickets
where no decent woman dared go. Not that she
scorned the mayhaws her black neighbors left
at her door. Toiling hours in tropical swelter,
she boiled them down into a red syrup

salvaged in jelly jars. How much of her sweat
she stirred into that crimson stock I still
contemplate when it comes time to make jelly
again and I find myself roaming the fruit stalls
till I smell them, lifting both hands full,
as she would have done, to my nose,
understanding why she bent to every plum,

melon, and peach, every strip of fresh sugar cane.
Thus have these scuppernongs ripened
for too long inside my refrigerator.
Past time to ward off the coming rot,
time to remember how she’d set to work
with no recourse to Sure-Gel. Just lemon and
sugar. A spoon. Cheesecloth. Most of a morning

or afternoon, watching the syrup drip slowly,
then more slowly still down the spoon’s sticky
edge. Leaving everything it touched, as always,
a mess, and for what? On my windowsill,
seven jars through which the light of this late
summer afternoon takes its time, quickening
each pot of pale amber juices to sweet everlasting.