Kiwi

    Fruit without a stone, its shiny

    pulp is clear green. Inside, tiny

    black microdot seeds. Skin

    the color of khakiImagine

    a shaggy brown-green pelt

    that feels like felt.

    It's oval, full-rounded, kind

    of egg-shaped. The rind

    comes off in strips

    when peeled with the lips.

    If ripe, full of juice,

    melon-sweet, yet tart as goose-

    berry almost. A translucent ring

    of seed dots looks something

    like a coin-slice of banana. Grown

    in the tropics, some stone

    fruits, overlarge, are queerly

    formed. A slablike pit nearly

    fills the mango. I

    scrape the fibrous pulp off with my

    teeth. That slick round ball

    in avocado (fruit without juice) we call

    alligator pear:

    Plant this seedpit with care

    on three toothpicks over a glass

    of water. It can come to pass

    in time, that you'll see

    an entire avocado tree.

    Some fruits have stones, some seeds.

    Papaya's loaded with slimy black beads.

    Some seem seedlesslike quince

    (that makes your tastebuds wince.)

    Persimmon will

    be sour, astringent "until

    dead ripe," they say. Behind

    pomegranate's leathery rind,

    is a sackful of moist rubies. Pear,

    cantaloupe, grapefruit, guava keep their

    seeds hidden, as do raspberry, strawberry,

    pineapple. Plum, peach and cherry

    we know as fruits with big

    seedstones. And fig?

    Its graininess is seed. Hard to believe

    is prickly durian. It's custard

    sweetand smells nasty.

    But there's no fruit as tasty,

    as odd, or as funny

    none

    as fresh-off-the-vine New Zea-

    land kiwi.