The assignment was to draw a pineapple,
but I began with some scruffy hedges
and a cluster of maples in the background,
for I had made the mistake of picturing
the pineapple outdoors instead of
on the table where it clearly had been placed.
And that led me to include
a chain of low mountains in the distance
and some lighter ones beyond them,
and what still life would be complete
without a sun emitting shine-lines in the sky?
I asked, but no one answered.
And so I persisted, adding some clouds,
shaded on their undersides,
and even a few airborne seagulls,
all part of the ever-expanding sphere
of my sketch pad, until my runaway pencil
vanished into a little point in the distance.
Poor pineapple, I realize now,
overlooked symbol of hospitality,
sculpted fruit of welcome by the door,
reduced now to a dot in a landscape,
forgive my adolescent pencil
in its eagerness to explore the world
for bypassing the simple fact of you,
for not seeing the world that you are—
the rough armadillo plates of your surface
and your pale yellow, succulent interior
waiting on a rudimentary table
for the unstoppable downswing of the blade.