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Kate Burnside

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Member Since: Feb, 2004

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Soft Fruit
by Kate Burnside → (All Poetry by Kate Burnside)
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Fruit-farm owner,
an impotent shadow stalking
beneath his floppy canvas hat

My fourteenth summer
spent between the canes,
awkwardly avoiding prickles
to reach the juiciest fruits

Unsuitably dressed,
vulnerable to the attentions
of both the courted sun's rays
and jealous raspberry thorns:
I got stung!

Suddenly, silently
he would appear,
passing like
an unwanted rain cloud
across the entrance
to the fruit cage

I felt a chill

The storm broke later
dark and ominous
in the barn
as I offered my fruit
for payment

Stealthily from behind
I felt his touch,
a disembodied hand
ghost-like upon my breast

Like an encounter
with the shadow of death
I could prove nothing -

It was just a suggestion
just a hint -
like someone walking
over my grave

But it cost me dear
and I departed...

In pieces

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 Reviews of "Soft Fruit"
Reviewed by A PAX
Reviewed on April 24, 2004
oh man!!!
Kate.......you took me there......felt the confusion, intrusion and embarressment.......
you said this so well......but its a shame u went thru it........
brave lady poet.......
pax A

Reviewed by na na (Reader)
Reviewed on April 24, 2004
It must have been a very shattering experience for one to go through. And you can add boys to the list; in ways different from the girls; but having the same result - the destruction of innocence. All innocence has to vanish at onetime or other, but hopefully one has the right and opportunity to decide what will happen and when; not have it forced on themselves in any way.


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