Nine Persimmons
Kerry James Evans “And he will show you a large upper room furnished and prepared: there make ready for us.” —Mark 14:15
You’re at dinner with a friend, an artist, who has prepared eggplant parmesan with his mother, who is Italian—who was kissed, as a girl, by Mussolini, who (it is rumored) admired persimmons and ordered the public to plant their seeds in gardens and orchards— To feed the soldiers, your artist friend says. Across from you, at the table, are nine persimmons ripening on the sill, lined up like little round soldiers wearing green hats. Aren’t they perfect? he says. They are, you reply. They are the most sincere fruit, he says. When you ask, Why do you say that? He says, Look at them. You do, while his mother recalls what she heard in her youth. To predict winter, farmers split open the seeds. If shaped like a fork, mild, if spoon, snow—knife, ice. You remember