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. 

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