Watermelon

Small as a bocce ball, dark
green and striped, the latest
in Kroger's arsenal of seven
a day and rich in lycopene,
but thirty years ago you were it—
karpúzi—and I'm tap tapping
my head, pantomiming your
new name, Karpúzi, for stupid,
for melonhead, for how could you
when by witness of moon-melt
and star, we crossed hearts in
sign language/love language,
the inky sea pounding out my
deposition: I'll return in a year,
steal the money if I have to.
What kind of sieve lets go of that?
Not the blushing bougainvillea
eavesdropping by the bus station
when I left, or the shrieks
of pipers and black-backed gulls
egging on the tides, or the wet
silver slapping of a morning
catch, and the cracked split-
nailed hands struggling the hook
out of the mouth, Greek
filling the air like falling flakes
of Scrabble, happiness tiles
to make the words that would
have kept you waiting. Even now,
given a morning's clean and
breaking hour, it all comes back
as I did. And you, gone on
with your life, opening your big
dumb arms, wading right into it.

Copyright © 2007 Alice Friman All rights reserved
from New Letters
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission