The plums symbolize simple indulgences. There are many interpretations of "This Is Just To Say" which take an allegorical approach to the poem and read the plums as a metaphor, often for the fruit from Genesis that Eve eats in the Garden of Eden. However, the plums are strongest as a symbol when they are just plums, mundane and objectively unimportant objects that nevertheless create joy for the speaker. Eating the plums brings joy and satisfaction, and the poem dramatizes this simple pleasure through the speaker's description of the plums as "delicious / so sweet / and so cold" (10-12). This interpretation also accords with the conventions of imagism, which as a movement embraced precise and clear depictions of specific objects rather than grand or ambiguous concepts.