Rooted in rich, dark soil beside
my grandmother’s smokehouse
where hams hung and cured,

a brooding domicile flourished—
a green, object lesson in which
the males of tiny wasps had

their randy, predestined way
with unhatched females so that
they were born already filled

with the next larvae
for more metamorphoses,
ovipositing, the shedding of wings,

then dying, and supposedly
for the most part, being dissolved
by ficain. But I was happier then,

in lush ignorance, simply
slurping plump fecundity,
and even later when I still

only imagined figs burst open
like sparklers as nature morte
for a Renoir, Cotán, or Ribot scene,

till I learned of the core
staying polluted with pollinators.
Yet the very Son of God, knowing

all this, would’ve eaten, craved
them in fact, and cursed a tree
that was barren, maybe as a message

on the importance of usefulness,
or on the strength in belief, or possibly,
on not thinking any of creation unclean.

Sarah Goldbart, Nature Morte II, acrylic on wood, 2024. Used by permission.

Learn more about fig wasps.