1.
I was eating plums when you called me to your room. You couldn’t stop stealing the vodka from the freezer in the dead of night. The plums were juicy, royal velvet, sliced neatly so as not to waste an ounce. I held you as you cried little blueberries onto me, staining my shirt. I made fruit salad for us. In went the smooth cubed mangos, the slippery peaches, the nectarines, and the velvet plums. Out came the feelings, out came a bruised sunset of your pain and it washed over me. We stayed up all night talking, and consumed the fruit amalgam on your threadbare couch like children, lying on our tummies, heads curiously resting on hands. We stared with child-like innocence, watching the sun come up in the slow glory splash of fruit salad colors. First we had fruit, and then we had ourselves. It was time to grow up.
I was eating plums when you called me to your room. You couldn’t stop stealing the vodka from the freezer in the dead of night. The plums were juicy, royal velvet, sliced neatly so as not to waste an ounce. I held you as you cried little blueberries onto me, staining my shirt. I made fruit salad for us. In went the smooth cubed mangos, the slippery peaches, the nectarines, and the velvet plums. Out came the feelings, out came a bruised sunset of your pain and it washed over me. We stayed up all night talking, and consumed the fruit amalgam on your threadbare couch like children, lying on our tummies, heads curiously resting on hands. We stared with child-like innocence, watching the sun come up in the slow glory splash of fruit salad colors. First we had fruit, and then we had ourselves. It was time to grow up.
2.
“What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon. In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations! What peaches and what penumbra! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!—and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons” (Allen Ginsberg)
“What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon. In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations! What peaches and what penumbra! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!—and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons” (Allen Ginsberg)
3.
Walking to the green-awninged Latino Farmer’s Market on French Street, I had many thoughts of you, Allen Ginsberg, I collected forty pounds of fruit; four bunches of bananas, eight golden delicious apples, three pomegranates, two mangos, two grapefruit, four oranges, a pineapple, a quarter of a watermelon, eight red plums, eight kiwis, three persimmons and five vine-ripened tomatoes. Slithering exhaustedly onto the bench on my porch, I catch my breath from the walk and feel rich. Lighter than gold, easier to hold, let the taste unfold! Upstairs, I arrange, I refrigerate, I contemplate my fate and create a fruit plate. I will have two golden delicious.
Walking to the green-awninged Latino Farmer’s Market on French Street, I had many thoughts of you, Allen Ginsberg, I collected forty pounds of fruit; four bunches of bananas, eight golden delicious apples, three pomegranates, two mangos, two grapefruit, four oranges, a pineapple, a quarter of a watermelon, eight red plums, eight kiwis, three persimmons and five vine-ripened tomatoes. Slithering exhaustedly onto the bench on my porch, I catch my breath from the walk and feel rich. Lighter than gold, easier to hold, let the taste unfold! Upstairs, I arrange, I refrigerate, I contemplate my fate and create a fruit plate. I will have two golden delicious.
4.
But the persimmon?! “Diospyros kaki, the Asian persimmon, in the family Ebenaceae. In many cultivars, known as the astringent varieties, the fruit has a high proanthocyanidin-type tannin content which makes the immature fruit astringent and bitter. The tannin levels are reduced as the fruit matures. It is not edible in its crisp, firm state but has its best flavor when allowed to rest and soften after harvest. It has a soft jelly-like consistency and is best eaten with a spoon.” Spoon! It is orange, gelatinous and of a mango-ish consistency and it is mine. I get juice and pulp all over my face, and it drips from my mouth like blood would from a wolf’s jaw, hunched over his kill after a long hunt. I imagine myself as a hunter-gatherer. I yearn for the simplicity of tending the earth, of harvest and of fullness, rainbow gems of fruit to gather. First having fruit, and then having myself.
But the persimmon?! “Diospyros kaki, the Asian persimmon, in the family Ebenaceae. In many cultivars, known as the astringent varieties, the fruit has a high proanthocyanidin-type tannin content which makes the immature fruit astringent and bitter. The tannin levels are reduced as the fruit matures. It is not edible in its crisp, firm state but has its best flavor when allowed to rest and soften after harvest. It has a soft jelly-like consistency and is best eaten with a spoon.” Spoon! It is orange, gelatinous and of a mango-ish consistency and it is mine. I get juice and pulp all over my face, and it drips from my mouth like blood would from a wolf’s jaw, hunched over his kill after a long hunt. I imagine myself as a hunter-gatherer. I yearn for the simplicity of tending the earth, of harvest and of fullness, rainbow gems of fruit to gather. First having fruit, and then having myself.
5.
No one ever called me fruity, but as a child, I lifted the brightly stained petticoats of strawberries, peered into their pink, trying to grasp their seeds. I lusted after my friends’ straw-colored ponytails and I unzipped my rubber peach in exploration of confusing juices. Who were these girls with their ripeness who I grew up with? We burst together, from nubbed and firm to pink and fleshy. We dropped our monthly seed for the first time, like so much strawberry jam and the boys cried when their bright emerald bananas hardened so fast, they turned yellow, burst at the seams and blasted little fibers everywhere before softening once again. Before anyone knew what was happening, we were all exchanging pollen in the same parks and playgrounds we had once traversed while young and unripe.
No one ever called me fruity, but as a child, I lifted the brightly stained petticoats of strawberries, peered into their pink, trying to grasp their seeds. I lusted after my friends’ straw-colored ponytails and I unzipped my rubber peach in exploration of confusing juices. Who were these girls with their ripeness who I grew up with? We burst together, from nubbed and firm to pink and fleshy. We dropped our monthly seed for the first time, like so much strawberry jam and the boys cried when their bright emerald bananas hardened so fast, they turned yellow, burst at the seams and blasted little fibers everywhere before softening once again. Before anyone knew what was happening, we were all exchanging pollen in the same parks and playgrounds we had once traversed while young and unripe.
6.
Hippocrates once said “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” That is what fruit, women, men, genitalia, poetry, all are to me. I take it all in, I breathe, swallow, I roll my eyes back in pleasure and I bask in the healing power of what is Natural. I hear the sticky fructose pounding at the back of my throat, that spoonful of fruit sugar to help the medicine go down, the seductress Strawberry is beckoning to me and I will drown. So give me over to the slow glory splash of fruit salad colors. First I had fruit, and then I had myself.
Hippocrates once said “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” That is what fruit, women, men, genitalia, poetry, all are to me. I take it all in, I breathe, swallow, I roll my eyes back in pleasure and I bask in the healing power of what is Natural. I hear the sticky fructose pounding at the back of my throat, that spoonful of fruit sugar to help the medicine go down, the seductress Strawberry is beckoning to me and I will drown. So give me over to the slow glory splash of fruit salad colors. First I had fruit, and then I had myself.
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