Alex Keramidas: A Poem in Two Parts

Sympathy for the Strawberry

          After Sonic Youth

                    I

Position me where I am both

on the boat and on the shore,

simultaneously on the gangway and on the jetty.

Tail flapping.

I’m neither fish nor meat.

//

My sweet little whorish self.     

//
         

How to describe a strawberry.

It’s a quiet strangeness,

like a velour handshake.

A strawberry belongs to the same family

as the roses.

Botanically it is not a berry.

It has unambiguous breasts.

//

Virgil wrote about the snake

lurking beneath it.

In the Garden of Earthly Delights

it spiced up an orgy.

Its surface mirroring the stars:

a constellation, kisses.

//

I’m a girl scout searching for the new stuff -

living underneath you I melt away.

                    II

How to approach a strawberry.

Place it in the palm of your hand

and blow, then open.

It will sing up your wall for hours.

Place it on your naked leg

and it will roll upwards,

pushing hard against gravity.

//

I tried testing this somewhere else

but it turned out scientific:

a fruit in a room in a book.

I had too much sympathy for the strawberry.

For example, my dress on the floor is still missing.

My white thighs now prevent me

from eating flesh.

//

Enter the dragon fruit.

Use of fruit in the body. Or usufruct.

Did I mention that it melts away? (all gone).

My sweet little whorish self.

Alex Keramidas is a poet based in South East London. English is her fourth language. She has published two poetry pamphlets: Vestibular Training (Bored Wolves, 2024) and Guidance on Translating Sound on Paper (after Pitman's) (Zimzalla, 2024). Her next pamphlet Galeotto Fu will be published by Antiphony Press in August 2025.She will be performing words and sounds with Plastic Moonrise at Line Up festival in Malvern in October 2025. 

(Image: Adrienne Shelley in The Unbelievable Truth [1989])