What the pear refuses to mean

I held the sample on its wooden stick,

the toothpick bending as I bit through skin,

and tasted nothing—just the mealy, thin

surrender of a pear that played a trick.

A woman pushed past me to the next plate.

I stood there, understanding in that second

that my mouth had changed. I should have reckoned

with this earlier. I was twenty years too late.

The fruit gave up. The juice ran clear.

I threw it away without finishing.

Now I know: it's not the pear.

It's me. It's how I've grown to catalog

what's missing, what's gone wrong, what will mar

the taste of anything I put inside,

and I'm the one who's stopped being fair

to what the world offers anymore.

The toothpick bent. I didn't go back.

My tongue remembers being young.

My tongue remembers tasting joy.

My tongue now just knows

what it's lost,

and I can't make it

want

the way it did.