In Hans Ostrom’s brief poem, a speaker proposes an intimate exchange built around a single word: “apricot.” The word feels less like a fruit and more like a private password or shared secret. The speaker will lean close and murmur it, and the listener will “pose as one who understands.” The poem has the rhythm of a confession—“There’s something I’ve been meaning. / To tell you.”—but what gets told is only the word itself, repeated until it becomes almost incantatory. The mood is hushed, playful, and a little strange: tender but deliberately opaque. Rather than explaining anything, the repetition of “apricot” lets the sound carry the feeling, as if the speaker and listener are sharing a private ritual. The result is a poem about intimacy itself—how a single, ordinary word can become charged with meaning when exchanged between two people in just the right way.
No Uncertain Term — Summary
I would like to have a word with you. It is apricot.
It shall determine our exchange. Confiding apricot, I will lean in
and murmur. You shall pose as one who understands.
I will have a moment of your time. There’s something I’ve been meaning.
To tell you. Apricot, I tell you. Apricot, I say. Apricot, you realize.