Brix and other sweetness
by Victoria Meng, Huntingtower
Years 11 – 12 Ekphrastic Poetry Finalist
‘Pink Ladies’ by Julia Abbey (2025)
To create a Pink Lady, merge the two mothers—
Lady Williams. Golden Delicious.
A little pollen
carried from flower to flower,
then years of weather.
Morning—
now the chair
has another chair
on the wall
Geraniums
lean from a planter—
marked RECIPE.
She should come into colour gradually.
Eighty millimetres,
Fifty per cent blush,
Sixteen degrees Brix, minimum.
Give the first name back:
Cripps Pink
Diamond, diamond, diamond—
at the edge of the carpet– where
two chosen ones lie open.
Nothing pink inside them.
Only flesh— yellowing
where the knife went through.
The knife itself has left.
So has whoever sat here,
if anyone did.
Afternoon keeps the chair’s other body
upright on the wall—
taller, greyer, impossible to move.
Soon cut fruit will brown.
Flowers will continue
their small red argument with the carpet.
And the empty chair
will go on casting—
something larger than itself.