SUMMER FRUIT

I spent springs and summers

as a child

eating the fruit from a watermelon.

Grainy sugar bites

and juice slick up my cheeks

like a Chelsea smile.

My mother used to warn me

if I swallowed a seed

it would get stuck in my belly

and grow a watermelon plant.

My stomach would expand

till I’d combust.

I always spit them out

in horror.

I spent a spring and summer

eating the fruit

from the flesh of your lips.

The bounty of two round mounds,

hard like pink sugar.

Your grip on my cheeks

with a warm hand

holding my mouth open.

To drop seeds into my belly.

To spit a virus in my throat

that grew into a giant “you” plant.

The branches

crawling up the walls of my insides

and begging

to claw my mouth open

and make me say things I don’t mean.

The dying leaves

flaking off

and swaying to the pit of my stomach

in an imaginary breeze

landing with a deafening thump.

Echoes that bounce up between my teeth.

And remind my tongue there is no more watermelon.

Just empty space.