Figs
From a life where they’d made no impact
he started eating one fig a day
on the advice of a doctor in a dream.
At first with yoghurt and honey
then whole like an apple
seeds drying round his mouth
oil lingering in his throat till late.
It became such that if he missed a fig
the gripes were crippling and visions
of demons would send him to bed.
When trade laws changed and supply
dwindled he sold the house
to charter a plane from Jordan
and when it didn’t arrive was found
naked on the runway, clawing at the asphalt.
John Porter’s poems have been published in The Stinging Fly, Prole, Streetcake, Snakeskin, Pulp Poets Press and Morphrog. He lives in Gloucestershire, UK, after previous stints in London and Moscow. He usually writes on trains or whilst waiting for his children to fall asleep. He has a website at https://www.johnporterauthor.com .
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