Green Pears

From Chile the small label read. Each has an emerging blush on both cheeks like a young girl’s. It is the blush that holds my eye, and I succumb. I press my thumb firmly against the skin: the hardness resists. At home I place them on the kitchen windowsill; the winter light has loitered there too long; these green pears will welcome its reassuring warmth. When ripened to a pale yellow, soft to the touch, fragrant, I will place them in a cooler air. Perhaps there they will remember the high slopes, the cool Chilean nights and, if only briefly, think of home.