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Ugli Fruit
To your right, at the end of Kings Heath, sits our supermarket,
Sainsbury's first dream of trading beyond London’s swinging 60’s,
Realised and immortalised
As value to shout about - making life taste better.
As I approach the automated swing gates,
I imagine them as saloon doors to the wild zest,
Making my way to the citrus aisle:
Mandarins and clementines, nectarines - tangtastic!
I see the invigorating yellow of the sociable lemon,
Jolly and sociable companion to lime -
Tropically, they sit well together.
They distance themselves
From the murderous and mysterious blood orange,
Squatting close to his Cantonese cousin the golden orange kumquat,
Tart, sharp and crisp.
And then there's the grapefruit. A brute of a fruit,
Resolute, and I find stand-off-ish.
Sat on the shelf looking pleased with itself,
Seemingly in angry pleasure,
Knowing and boastful in having had a fling
With sweet tangerine.
She now finds him obscene, sour and mean.
Says he was clearly confused
When he called their child, ‘ugli’.
The ugli fruit - oddly shaped and blemished
But perfect in her imperfections
She's an unexpected surprise.
Aromatic - bursting with vitamin C
And sooooo juicy.
To the other fruits, it's an open secret,
That though she's pretty ugly,
She is awfully good.
And as I get to the checkout,
I wonder if it is this, that has made grapefruit so bitter
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