Venie Environmental Poetry Prize

it’s taken us four months to work out
what type of fruit our tree will bear

they will be greengage plums

they’re not ripe yet so I bought one at the supermarket
to see what they will taste like

very tart and biting just under the skin
like a couple after a row

I imagine myself making jam or roasting them with
spice and think about abundance

I research fruit nets until I found out fruit bats die
because their mothers can’t get back inside

I roast the plums and fill up empty jars
they don’t fit in the fridge so I start to give them away

a group of fruit bats migrate further north where there are more trees
and less nets

I’m tasting the preserved plums. they’re not quite what I had expected
and in fact, terrible

I’m surrounded by buckets and baskets of pale green fruit
the kitchen ferments on a hot afternoon

the bats can’t find a tree without nets or pesticides
so they start to malnourish

I take all the plums and place them in the landfill bin. I keep only one jar of the first jam I made.
it was the sweetest and best-tasting of the jams.

it takes me six months to eat it because I don’t eat much
jam these are the greengage plums in preston