Bosc Pears...

On the wooden windowsill. Facing south, but too low for the winter sun. Bodies enclosed in olive brown sheaths. Blending into the wood, they lie, rounded thighs, elegant elongated necks, like decorations. A week passes where daily I hold them, press their flesh. They are like fragile stones.

On the weekend I eat one, its pale honey-coloured flavourless fruit hard and crunchy as an apple's.

Those thick, gourd-shaped, olive-brown hides don't soften. They will never soften. Only a dark spot near the stem of one of the pears reveals ripeness as it begins to collapse inwards to nourish the seeds. Even without the presence of warm soil, they would lie on the windowsill and crumple slowly, decay into new life, its possibility.

I cut them and scoop out their seeds and peel the thick russeted skin and slice them and drop them into a bowl, with apples and cranberries, for a compote. They are not so juicy that they slide in my fingers. Sometimes pears don't ripen, but remain dry and coarse. Licking the pear juice, its faint unmistakable flavour, slightly grainy, like delicate sweet-spiced sun, on my fingers, I smile. Patience to this moment of perfection.

The dog is barking, my lover is here. I crumble the topping of oats, flour, brown sugar, butter, nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon over the mixture of fruit, fresh lemon juice and honey, place the dessert in the slow cooker; later in the day, the fruit will feed my slender pear-shaped body...