D.H. LAWRENCE'S FIGS Poem by Nuno Júdice

Lawrence recommended that the fig be divided into
into four pieces, for eating, after discarding
the skin. In this way, he reasoned, society would not look
askance upon the act of cutting open the fig and of
savoring it slowly, as one would read a poem. But
not all figs can be eaten in such a way; and
in the case of green figs, it's better to skin them from
the top down, without separating the skin completely
from the fruit; it's only after eating the top part, that
the moment arrives where there is only a bit of fig left
clinging to its skin. Then you can finally pluck it, and finish
eating what is left, for the meal to be complete.

Indeed, Lawrence also acknowledges this solution (and
also says it's okay to eat the skin): but we must
go even further than he does, which means that we must
also consider the tree itself. And if, while we're eating
the fig, the tree grabs our soul with its rough
branches, making it necessary to pull back its leaves to see how
it is we can escape beneath it, the taste which lingers in the mouth
recalls the image of the primitive woman, with her round womb
like the one of the early figs of Saint John, the first ones, that are gathered up
whole, in one sweep of the hand. So, my hand
becomes an extension of the fig tree, and I begin to think
that perhaps fig leaves will start growing from my arms,
as though they were branches; and that these leaves will hide
the figs that I will gather, keeping them fresh.

Alternatively, I could transform the trunk of the fig tree
into the body of a naked woman; and these leaves would adorn her. But the fig
that I have in my hand will make me feel her soft breasts, making
it seem like in stripping the skin from the fig the woman might appear from within,
and I would reach the same conclusion as Lawrence about
the many ways to eat a fig.