Osage Orange
Monkey brain,
spider ball,
hedge apple from the fall. No,
more than one fruit,
drupes in the round,
carpel upon carpel left
in shallow ground.
Come deer,
rabbit, and vole,
try to nick and tear
a green rind that reeks
of citrus but is not,
a crust of fractal knots
that will never crack
under canine or cusp:
we speared and ate
the last beasts
that could break it,
leaving seeds to run
through rumens
into deep scat.
But we’re
smart apes,
we found our uses:
bow-wood,
crooked jack,
fire-bark,
bent and strung
to fling arrows
into a stag’s lung,
branches woven in
a stubborn lattice
to shield cattle
from snout and teeth,
and in death,
ashes in the garden
for new leaves.
ANDREW McCALL teaches ecology and botany at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. Read more.