BaltimOregon to Maine

Fallen plums from our neighbor's tree last October

The end of today’s “This American Life” was a tribute to William Carlos Williams’ sparse, perhaps unfeeling “This is Just to Say” poem. It’s one of my favorites. It’s a non-apologizing apology, which contributors from Sarah Vowell to Shalom Auslander riff on in their own versions of the verse. But I mostly love it for its simple evocation of the powerful temptation represented by those crisp, cold plums. As President Obama once said, “The flesh is weak.”

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Copyright © 1962 by William Carlos Williams. Used with permission of
New Directions Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved. No part of
this poem may be reproduced in any form without the written consent
of the publisher.