Kiwi

Fruit without a stone, its shiny    pulp is clear green.

Inside, tiny    black microdot seeds.

Skin    the color of

Imagine    a shaggy brown-green pelt    that feels like felt.    It's oval, full-rounded, kind    of egg-shaped.

The rind    comes off in strips    when peeled with the lips.    If ripe, full of juice,    melon-sweet, yet tart as goose-    berry almost.

A translucent ring    of seed dots looks something    like a coin-slice of banana.

Grown    in the tropics, some stone    fruits, overlarge, are queerly    formed.

A slablike pit nearly    fills the mango.

I    scrape the fibrous pulp off with my    teeth.

That slick round ball    in avocado (fruit without juice) we call    alligator pear:    Plant this seedpit with care    on three toothpicks over a glass    of water.

It can come to pass    in time, that you'll see    an entire avocado tree.    Some fruits have stones, some seeds.    Papaya's loaded with slimy black beads.    Some seem seedlesslike quince    (that makes your tastebuds wince.)    Persimmon will    be sour, astringent "until    dead ripe," they say.

Behind    pomegranate's leathery rind,    is a sackful of moist rubies.

Pear,    cantaloupe, grapefruit, guava keep their    seeds hidden, as do raspberry, strawberry,    pineapple.

Plum, peach and cherry    we know as fruits with big    seedstones.

And fig?    Its graininess is seed.

Hard to believe    is prickly durian.

It's custard    sweetand smells nasty.    But there's no fruit as tasty,    as odd, or as funny    none    as fresh-off-the-vine New Zea-    land kiwi.