Breadfruit

Drawing of breadfruit by John Frederick Miller

Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) is a species of flowering tree in the mulberry family, Moraceae originating in the South Pacific and that was eventually spread to the rest of Oceania.

Quotes

• Boys dream of native girls who bring breadfruit,
  Whatever they are,
  As bribes to teach them how to execute
  Sixteen sexual positions on the sand;
  This makes them join (the boys) the tennis club,
  Jive at the Mecca, use deodorants, and
  On Saturdays squire ex-schoolgirls to the pub
  By private car.

  Such uncorrected visions end in church
  Or registrar:
  A mortgaged semi- with a silver birch;
  Nippers; the widowed mum; having to scheme
  With money; illness; age. So absolute
  Maturity falls, when old men sit and dream
  Of naked native girls who bring breadfruit
  Whatever they are.

  • Philip Larkin, "Breadfruit," in: Neil Powell (1980). Carpenters of Light: Some Contemporary English Poets. p. 100