The Jackfruit Tree

It a normal looking tree but

its fruit, each one as heavy

as half-grown child has spiny

skin you cannot hold with

ungloved hands, and hangs

not a beauty to the eye but

as an medical abnormality to

the beholder. 

Halve one - if you can - and its

innards present swirls of flesh

and animal gut that makes you

look away as if in an abattoir.

Twice this decade a Jackfruit

has crashed through my roof

as if to say there would have

been no damage friend if your

roof hadn’t been there.

Compare apples to oranges,

if you must, but you will never

know this Asian land without

eating the fruit of the jackfruit

tree.

FG       2/12/2017

A jackfruit can weigh as much as 80 lbs.  It looks like durian, but experts say they are not closely related.  When I first came to Thailand I was amazed by the variety of weird Asian fruit I had never seen before.  The jackfruit is one of the weirdest.  I’ll probably never get hit by a meteorite or space junk, but the odds of getting hit by a jackfruit are a lot better.  Chunky’s mother sells a jack fruit for $4 or so.  I wonder if I could get a guy to fix the roof and pay him in jackfruit?