A lot can be made of them,
real things painted and glossy,
necessary or vulgar.
Coconuts hang from the strong head
of a tree forced to slope,
to revere the sun.
Put an ear to their shell
and the pedaling of water
in its walls will inform you
of its ripeness.
The meat in young coconuts is pliable,
it’ll thicken as the exterior
hardens.
In my grandmother’s time,
it was better than antacids.
In her mother’s time,
it cured faster than penicillin.
We would catch them as they fell
from a shaken tree, tilting our bodies,
lifting our skirts.
Silvia Bonilla holds an MFA in poetry from the New School. Her work has been featured in/is forthcoming from Pittsburgh Journal, Green Mountains Review, Rhino, Reed Magazine, Cream City Review, and Pen&Brush, among others. She has received scholarships from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, Colgate Writers Conference, and The Frost Place. She recently received a Fellowship from The Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. You can find her at: https://www.bonillasilvia.com/about.html
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