the avocado

avocados on my window sill-
still not ripe,
when can i eat you?

i respect the avocado.  the flesh of a perfectly ripe avocado is a truly wonderful eating experience but its allure is made so much more intriguing by its mysterious reluctance to give any indication of when it will be ready to eat.  when i buy my avocados they're usually all hard and not so great for eating quite yet so i put them to one side for a couple of days in the kitchen until they're nice and ripe.  the avocado however has its own way of doing things, it says to itself "well i might be ripe in a couple of days but if i feel like it i'll make you wait a week", if on this basis you decide to leave them for a week it'll sneakily ripen while you're not looking and then be over ripe, brown and gungy just when you fancy eating it.  a frustratingly awkward fruit but one that you can't help but admire and respect because apart from when it's being eaten the avocado calls the shots.