[A woman, Michal, sits on stage with a pile of figs
which, during the course of the play, she slices.]
[at first glowingly]
It was to be wrapped
To be carried off.
Be encumbered.
Be wound
like bed sheets.
Surrounded.
Bound.
Blind.
[pause. slicing.]
As fruit go,
the fig is unique.
Most fruit are formed by the plant’s
placenta. The fig however is made-up
of dozens of tiny flowers grown together,
into one another.
This is called inflorescence.
It means there are flowers
inside the fruit. Makes them
difficult to pollinate. Were it not
for the fig wasp
who lays her eggs inside the fig,
so that their lives begin
within the fruit
surrounded by darkness,
sweetness.
The males
are born practically without eyes
without wings, and are capable of little
other than mating
and chewing through
the flesh of the fig
so the females may escape.
It has been called
“the most complicated and remarkable example of male inequity”
[pause. fruit.]
What first put me in David’s hands?
Well. Love. Yes.
And beauty. Yes.
And music. Certainly music.
And dance. The way he danced.
The way we danced.
You may have read about my husband.
You may have read about
his love life.
Back then all of Israel knew how successful a soldier he was:
Saul has slain his thousands
David his myriad
But anyone who met him thought of
his music, and his dance,
and his body.
When I met him he sang,
so beautifully,
people tried to write down
his songs as he sang,
so they could remember them.
Remember him.
But later when they looked
back at their notes, they made no sense.
No one could capture what they’d heard
and seen. No one could capture
him at all.
We met on my fifteenth birthday
we danced. He
pressed me to him
called me “my eyes.”
He said, “Yes my eyes.
Shall we dance,
my eyes”
He said I was beautiful
and essential.
He breathed in my hair
I smelled him.
Smelled like him.
I lay my mouth on his neck.
Later, he snuck into my chamber
and in darkness
as the sheets wrapped around us he
whispered to me, his voice
sweet but so low
I couldn’t understand him
but it sounded like:
Mistake.
[cutting. industriously now.]
It was even written,
written,
“Michal
Saul’s daughter
loved him.”
Within a month we were married
within a moment,
within a bridesprice,
the day was hot and dizzy.
I was, after all a princess,
and say what you will about a monarchy,
they know celebrations –
– lasted deep into the night
beautiful, until
after the meal, my brother
Jonathan took me aside
told me father
planned on killing my new husband.
Said it was jealousy.
What could I do? I was bound.
I told David to flee.
And he fled.
I took a wooden statue to my
wedding bed, as my groom slinked
out of town.
In the middle of the night
thugs broke down my door
and stabbed the statue repeatedly.
The next day I tunneled out
from my sheets covered
in sawdust and so
in sawdust I waited
for David.
[remembers the pile of figs.]
Nothing from David.
I could understand this, I suppose,
but still, I hoped
a note would come
smuggled by some confidant
rolled-up into some servant’s hat,
or baked into my dessert.
Some sign that he was out there
thinking of me.
Instead I sat in my chamber
watching the courtyard
through the window.
Until, after five years of this,
control of me
went back to my father,
the marriage was annulled and for fear
of missing a dower, father
married me off to a man I’d never met.
His name was Palti.
Palti had a farm outside Bahrim,
fig orchard, some goats, quite a shock
for a princess
but that’s what a girl gets
for saving her husband’s life.
Life was slow and small.
I began to worry David
might be looking for me
back at home.
That’s when I started
writing letters.
May 24th,
Dear David,
Today is our anniversary.
Today the fig wasps began emerging
from the Smyrna figs, soaked in juice and pollen.
Wasps understand how a flower
can grow inside
a fruit.
May 25th
David,
A doe-goat gave birth. The umbilical
chord wrapped the kid’s neck
and my husband Palti
saved it just in time.
He’s a good man,
don’t worry.
May 26th
David,
The fig wasps continue.
Flowers can live inside the fruit
long after it’s been picked.
So can
wasps.
May 27th
My sweet,
From complications
the kid died.
The doe survived,
but has lost any
desire to live.
Fig wasps continue.
I didn’t know
how to address the letters.
I’d still heard nothing from David.
I just wrote David on the envelopes
and would give a packet of them
whenever a messenger came by.
I lived on the farm for ten years.
Slowly, I wrote fewer and fewer
letters. Slowly I became more
settled at the farm.
Palti was a good man.
He was patient and kind,
never forced his will,
never forced himself
on me. Slowly I developed
a happiness there,
a kind of amiable
love for my trees,
for Palti,
for my life.
Of course, you become content
when your desires are bound by
what you have.
I had a fig orchard.
And that was enough.
Really, I was happy.
On a summer afternoon, pruning
the fig branches in the orchard
I ran into my brother.
This was a surprise to me.
He lived hundreds of miles away.
Furthermore, he said David was King
of all Israel
and wanted his bride back.
This was a worse surprise.
And then came an even worse surprise:
my heart leapt.
I was thrilled.
It was like my wedding day had
simply been paused
for fifteen years and I felt dizzy again,
spun,
could taste his
neck on my lips.
Jonathan and I left straight away
from the orchard
I didn’t even say goodbye to Palti.
What could I have said?
Still, we saw Palti following us
towards Bahrim. Jonathan sent some thugs
to beat him up.
When I got to Jerusalem they took me
to a guest room. What did I expect?
From the window of the room
was the courtyard. Summer evening.
Dust and smoke from lamb cooking
moving in the purple light. I opened
the window and for a long
time I sat and watched
my new home.
I could see the entryway
to the city and just at sunset it erupted
with a procession as if on cue,
people swarmed and something
happened between
a riot and a celebration.
I didn’t understand
and in the middle was a man
dancing, having lost all control,
dancing naked.
I can tell you
after fifteen years I hadn’t forgotten
how his body moved, nor,
might I add, had age.
That was my husband.
All of Jerusalem around him,
dancing
he’s dancing,
naked,
smiling,
naked,
his balls in his hand
and there are women,
old women,
peasant women,
thronging him
and he’s smiling
and trailing behind him
a bevy of other women wearing
the clothing of wives
and I know they’re his wives
and I’m one of them.
It was written
about this,
about me:
“And she detested him
in her heart.”
[the fruit is a mess.]
For how much change
can time be responsible?
It is to be
thrown to the ground.
To become the earth.
Be planted.
Be buried.
He buried me.
Planted me to bear fruit.
In fruit.
My anger:
eyeless
wingless
blinded and bound
encumbered by flesh
and myself
tunneling out.
As love could
flower inward,
to make fruit
to breed wasps,
to tunnel outward.
To flourish,
with flower,
and wasp within,
without bearing,
without him.
Dave Snyder is a poet and gardener from Chicago. His writing has appeared in journals such as The Iowa Review, Sentence: A Journal Of Prose Poetics and Seneca Review, and has been performed at the Rhinoceros Theater Festival and PAC/Edge Festival. More work can be found here.