“Melon”
old friends, old friends,
fifty years and more,
in a town left far behind,
taking it slow and easy,
making it last.
“What’s your hurry?”
one of them asks
as I walk by,
my usual pace,
on my way
to someplace else.
“Come on up,”
he says with a wave,
his hand flowing smooth
through the summer air,
drawing me in,
right up the walk.
“You’re one of those
burnin’ daylight men,
aren’t you?” And I laugh.
”Not much daylight left,”
he says, “not much to burn,
I reckon.”
“I guess not,” I say.
“Come have some melon then,
here’s a chair,
cool your jets,
as my grandkids say.”
I smile and nod, my jets cooling down.
and his friend looks up,
melon juice on his lips.
”What?” Charley says.
”Cut the man some melon,
that’s what.”
and he takes the knife,
small and beat up but sharp,
the world’s best surgeon at work,
the honeydew his patient,
its life in his skilled, weathered hands.
He cuts a generous slice,
holds it before me
like the magi’s gift,
for me, a stranger
on their ancient porch,
and waits for me to taste.
no napkins, nothing but
the melon and the three of us.
They watch me bring it to my mouth,
the light green sweetness on my tongue,
and me humming as they smile.
“Good melon,” Al says.
“The best,” Charley replies.
I cannot speak, only hum,
the melon possessing me,
the chair my home,
the porch my world.
“You never had melon
like that before,”
Al says, and he licks his lips,
and Charley cuts me another slice
and one for Al
and one for himself.
And so it goes,
as the daylight fades,
and there we are
between day and night,
and I have traded
one journey for another.
By the time the fireflies
light the yard
another melon has appeared,
larger and sweeter than the first,
and Charley hands me the knife
and tells me all his surgeon tricks.
“Good melon,” Al says.
“The best,” Charley replies.
And then they sit back,
the melon endless like this day,
and close their eyes
and listen to me hum some more.
