Napowrimo 27

Will I get caught up?! Maybe! My weekend looks pretty free :)

Today's prompt was to write a poem about something you remember.
I remember as a kid my dad always had cut fruit ready for snacking on the kitchen counters. Always. Without fail. I'm a fruitaholic, though I'm also a very lazy person. This typically results in me wanting fruit but not wanting to go through the work of washing, slicing, and storing. I know, how ridiculous, right? So I thought of that this afternoon while prepping a melon.

Slicing a Melon One Spring Afternoon

I remember eating melon as a child,

How miraculous the slices appeared

On the kitchen table, the color of sunset,

The color of meadow, the color of blush.

Always fruit on the table. How did it get there?

My father, standing at the kitchen counter,

Always chopping. How blissful to live

In this land of plenty. I remember this today,

As I stand at my kitchen counter,

Halving the world of a musk melon

Along its meridian.

There is a part of me that longs

For that simplicity, the savoring of sweetness

By itself, no separating flesh from rind,

No sharp edges, no blades, no counter top

To wipe clean, no chunks to pack away.

A part of me that wants to return

Back into the garden of plenty

Where everything was provided,

To cling back to the vine.

As I split the melon open, the seeds

Glisten in a slant of sunshine

Streaming in through my kitchen window

That could really use a wash.

I spoon them out with the membrane,

Gobs of ginger flesh, soft like the feathers

Of a baby bird about to leap into sky.

I wriggle the seeds free;

a few resist the loosening

as I spoon out the membrane,

cube the flesh into chunks

that will fit snugly inside

my watering mouth.