Kiwi

  Fruit without a stone, its shiny
  pulp is clear green. Inside, tiny
  black microdot seeds. Skin
  the color of khakiImagine
  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.