It
is
a
pear
this is a pear
in a bowl, real
but not—ink you
might think, clever
shape on page but not
a pear in the sense of a
fruit you can eat. You
could eat this page; it won’t
taste like a pear, but you can eat
it more so than a wax or wooden pear.
In fact wax, wood, even papier-mâché
deceive more than the pear here on this page.
They all look like pears down to the last russet
fleck and stubby stem, saliva syrup on the tongue.
Swallow in frustration. See through the plastic
deception. Declivitous, but not a true pear,
made of words, painted on canvas, photographed in shades of gray, so real as to pluck
off the wall and deliver that first bite : dermis gives under incisor, canine, juice mixed
with saliva, glistening white meat rimmed with the frilly edge of shredded skin.
They are not real, despite what sight you will, what senses they arouse.
Squint hard and you might see the real is not real and yet it is
even if what it realizes is not.