when october hung them in the branches,
bulging chinese lanterns, it was time: we
picked quinces, lugged them by the basket
         yellow into the kitchen

under the water. apple and pear ripened
to their names, to a simple sweetness –
different to the quince on its tree in
         the farthest corner

of my alphabet, in the latin of the garden,
hard and strange in its flavour. we cut,
quartered, cored the flesh (four big
hands, two small),

shadowy in the steam of the juicer, gave
sugar, heat, effort to something that
denied itself raw to the mouth. who could,
who would want to understand quinces,

their jelly, in bulbous glass jars for the
dark days lined up on the shelves,
in a cellar of days, where they shone,
are shining still.