 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
|
Sweet Dish
Three women making fruit salad
drop the chopped fruit
into a large bowl,
which they will later top up
with condensed milk and ice-cream.
Curious, the boy goes in to watch.
How easily and deftly
apples, bananas, peaches, pears, and papayas--
are skinned and diced,
plopping softly into the inviting vessel.
What remain now are the oranges.
After peeling them, each segment
is separated carefully, seeds removed
then uncovered individually,
so as not to damage the delicate fruit.
When the skin is pulled back,
the reddish-pink flesh,
honeycombed with juice,
emerges in tiny scoops.
The boy is just six,
but as he watches the operation
with strange fascination,
it suggests forbidden sights
which he will spy only as an adult.
Suddenly he says,
"Such patient work it is
to gain unharmed the hidden
core of this common fruit;
visible only when carefully peeled,
like a tender bud still concealed,
it is both sweet and tart to taste.…”
His first poem?!
The women eye at each other, embarrassed,
Blushing, then smiling, one of them
feeds him naked orange bits,
one by one, putting her fingers in his mouth,
until the sap, sweet and sharp,
dribbles down his sated lips and tongue—
and out he darts from that clammy room….
