We used to have a passionfruit tree growing in our garden.
From ours or the neighbours?
The weather never got hot enough here.
They’d shrivel up fawny dappled globes, dry.
The fence would buckle under the weight of effort.

Look at me with your many eyes, with your many eyes:
Five rays dyed purple
Died waving a white flag
In the coughing August breeze
Died wide-eyed. Turn them to me.

Purple. Sharp. Feelers, whiskers, spikes.
Begging and pleading and clinging and not.

Take me back to bleeding your seeds in your free moments
Opening up, arms in arms.
On your childhood bedroom floor.
You won’t look at me the next morning.

You tell me your insides are like mucus
I can only taste the sweet
I can only taste the sweet I
Can only taste the sweet I can only
Tastethesweeticanonlytastethesweet.
Many eyes.

Change me.
It was something you said in your last hours
And I can’t quite recall.

We are cutting down the tree tomorrow.
What if you had managed it?
What if the summer was warm?