When I thumb through your husk
you make a ripping sound like a deck of cards.
What round, yellow teeth you have!
Packed in shoulder to shoulder,
raised without privacy, you have never seen
your own hips or elbows.
Little beaded bubbles –
how would you survive if not in rows?
Who would you be if not alike?
You appear at the table as if you had traveled long distances,
alien specimens from an undiscovered star.
It is inconceivable that we eat you.
Hard and sleek as you are, I should have remembered you are all juice,
the sweetness exploding, each kernel a suicide lover
self-destructing in one soft spritz of summer.
Swathed asleep in green cradles from birth,
no wonder when we wake you
you taste like the sweet dreams of childhood.
Like Persian carpets, you have your imperfections,
small, knotted wounds from some mishandling or fall.
As do we all.
