fruit snacks

my grandfather kept a box 
above the fridge. i remember the house
smelled like soup & pickles & spice.
his hands shook slightly or else
i am conjuring a mismemory.
we ate the fruit of unfruit trees.
cicadas spit their seances into the august air.
i do not know if this is a real night
or one we both create in a re-making
of the past. history is a loom. 
he showed me how to plant
one of the false seeds on my tongue
& still grow a tree. i wish i had known
to ask him about sweetness.
about what fruit grew in the belly
of his home. how home can become
a limb we search for. shoveled oceans
worth of syrup. the gravel driveway.
wings he filled every single closet with.
there is a family story that on the day
the tornados ripped through lyons,
that he believed death was coming
for him. instead, he died 
in his sleep. i picture him,
mouth open, a little fruit tree 
growing there. birds come & roost.
i know the seeds live inside me. 
do they remember the nectar 
they are supposed to emulate 
or are they new bodies entirely?
memories of swallowed orchards.
my handful of false grapes. what language 
should i speak when i talk to him?
the tongue of almost oranges
or that of a root laying like a leg
in the backyard?