Leona Sevick

Korean Pears

Cupped closely by the braided white netting
that protects them from bruising, they squat on 

the shelf, awaiting her return. I’ve found
just three at the market this time, each one 

golden, fat, and twice the size of my fist,
skin speckled with pinpricks of a deeper 

brown. As a child she would sit patiently
at the feet of my mother, watch her peel 

then slice the gleaming, cold flesh into spears,
shovel the dripping white fruit into her 

greedy round mouth. These days I seek the pears
wherever I go, heft them in my palms, 

inspect their jackets for signs of trauma.
I time my harvest for her holidays, 

long weekends when she might decide to come
home after all, forget the bitter fights, 

silences cutting the air between us.
I’ll watch her eat, juice dripping down her chin.

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Leona Sevick is the 2017 Press 53 Poetry Award Winner for her first full-length book of poems, Lion Brothers. Her recent work appears in Orion, Birmingham Poetry Review, Blackbird, Southern Review and The Sun. Leona serves on the advisory board of the Furious Flower Black Poetry Center and is provost and professor of English at Bridgewater College in Virginia, where she teaches Asian American literature. Her new book of poems, The Bamboo Wife, is forthcoming in 2024 from Trio House Press.