FIG TREE IN A BROOKLYN BACKYARD

backyards completely walled in by the tall-canyon-backs
of the flat-roofed houses, all laced/graced with black fire-escapes
& glowing windows,
some housing four different families,
four different apartments,
some just one.

chain-link fences & tall wooden poles
strung with clothes-lines, tight-ropes from pole to wall,
wall to pole (sometimes
laundry flapping in the wind.). the garden, in this cement backyard;
a few tomato plants, some peppers, cucumbers, flowers,

& a fig tree; a fig tree,
which I think of as somehow Middle Eastern or
North African, exotic, at least;
a fig tree, in this Brooklyn backyard,
green with heavy fruit splitting open
its watermelon-sort-of-flesh
& dripping white sticky semen-y
sap onto my fingers.