And in the turning

Fifteen maybe twenty pears are in a glass dish on my table. They come from a tree my mother and father tend in Wisconsin. Take the fruit, they said, it will last until Christmas, until we see each other again. Next to their house a tree stumbles under clusters of pears. So many that they picked the fruit green. I have kept them only one day here in the sun and already their touch on each pear flared up yellow and red. So many pears. So many.