Kiwi

    Fruit without a stone, its shiny
    pulp is clear green. Inside, tiny
    black microdot seeds. Skin
    the color of khakiImagine
    a shaggy brown-green pelt
    that feels like felt.
    It's oval, full-rounded, kind
    of egg-shaped. The rind
    comes off in strips
    when peeled with the lips.
    If ripe, full of juice,
    melon-sweet, yet tart as goose-
    berry almost. A translucent ring
    of seed dots looks something
    like a coin-slice of banana. Grown
    in the tropics, some stone
    fruits, overlarge, are queerly
    formed. A slablike pit nearly
    fills the mango. I
    scrape the fibrous pulp off with my
    teeth. That slick round ball
    in avocado (fruit without juice) we call
    alligator pear:
    Plant this seedpit with care
    on three toothpicks over a glass
    of water. It can come to pass
    in time, that you'll see
    an entire avocado tree.
    Some fruits have stones, some seeds.
    Papaya's loaded with slimy black beads.
    Some seem seedlesslike quince
    (that makes your tastebuds wince.)
    Persimmon will
    be sour, astringent "until
    dead ripe," they say. Behind
    pomegranate's leathery rind,
    is a sackful of moist rubies. Pear,
    cantaloupe, grapefruit, guava keep their
    seeds hidden, as do raspberry, strawberry,
    pineapple. Plum, peach and cherry
    we know as fruits with big
    seedstones. And fig?
    Its graininess is seed. Hard to believe
    is prickly durian. It's custard
    sweetand smells nasty.
    But there's no fruit as tasty,
    as odd, or as funny
    none
    as fresh-off-the-vine New Zea-
    land kiwi.