“Watermelon Seed”
Watermelon Seed
“Un enfant,
C’est le dernier poète
D’un monde qui s’entête
A vouloir devenir grand
Et ça demande si les nuages ont des ailes
Et ça s’inquiète d’une neige tombée
Et ça s’endort, de l’or sous les paupières
Et ça se doute qu’il n’y a plus de fées”
Three stones were dropped in the creek
where the dragonflies kept them company,
the prehistoric nymphs feeding on their umbilicals.
We had trouble finding our way back to that place,
but were rewarded for doing so with watermelon,
which we let drip down our hands and arms
in the intense heat of an Oklahoma summer.
The gemstones were kept fixed in her eyes,
projecting sad and murky images from her heart.
I was too young to feel the distance, but her hands
recoiled when she saw that I had the same stone
skin she’d thrown into that creek so long ago.
The dragonflies still fed nearby, emerged for
their brief adult lives to witness our return.
There is a shed still bursting with private musings
and with his attempts to understand the pain,
of loss and of rejection and of mistakes made.
I’ve grown apart, my hands unable to find hers
and my eyes now filled with gemstones.
Chasms have opened where creeks used to be,
and stones have spilled out in all directions.
Unspoken words and indifference hang low,
clouds that block the sun and offer cooling shade.
When the watermelon has been eaten, you spit
out the seeds, which sometimes grow into new
plants that put on the beautiful refreshing fruit.
Sometimes, those seeds rot and turn to dust.
I am still a child, ignorant and stupid.
I’m standing in the grocery store, broasted chicken
in my hands for my grandma’s dinner, dumbfounded.
She looked past me, the gemstones in her eyes
blinding her from seeing me, even though I could
see the glint of recognition on her face as she silently
passed by. That was the last time I saw her.
Dust.
Written 19 February 2020 in Payne County, Oklahoma.
Brian Fuchs, “Watermelon Seed” from Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Scissortail Press, 2020)
