Fruit Études

Melon is hard on the outside

Tender on the inside

She has a magnificent personality

So they bred her with an invasive species

Now, she is seedless and childless

Has become uncouth and jokey

She will die on the vine

___

cherry

Her grandmother says Cherry is sweet and kind

If you ruin her, I’ll come to your house

Drag you out by your ear

Take a hard branch

Off your crooked ancestry tree and beat you blind

And when I’m dead, I’ll haunt you

Curse you

Throw magic spells

Turn you into a hapless

Gonadless monkey

Just for thrills

___

onion (not a fruit)

They chopped off your head during the revolution

Although you have a French passport

I can tell you are a faker from your bad accent

How dare you think that you could float to the top

In the soup of history

___

peach (for paul gauguin)

I shaved off all my fuzz

Even around my navel

Because you are a sick fool

And like shaved girls

You take a first bite

Expecting to get juicy, but instead

You get a mouthful of needles

from a shaman in Tahiti

___

bowl

I’m a cherimoya migrant

Not a crazy rich Asian

Don’t put us all into the same bowl

In a tropical Jamba Juice swirl