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Poetics Presents

Nancy L. Conner

Nancy L. Conner lives in western Massachusetts. She teaches English and works as a freelance copy editor.

Writers' Village members look forward to reading more of Nancy's work.

Watermelon Children My sister and I admired it in its galvanized tub-- a grape for a giant, great green whale in an ocean of ice. The only fruit we'd accept as dessert. It took both of us to wrestle it up to the table-- unwieldy dinosaur, green-striped blimp-- my mother's "Be careful!" lost behind our laughter. My father, adept surgeon, handed us each a half-moon-- rind smooth and green as frog skin, pink flesh sweet as imagined kisses. Juice made a sticky cascade, from cheek to chin from fingers to elbow-- bathed in fountains of nectar, we were mermaids emerged from a faraway pink-and-green sea. Squeezed together in the lawn chair, sunlight burning bony knees, we'd both spit pips beyond the bushes, then often at each other. My sister insisted if you swallowed even one, the seed would take root, growing melons in your tummy. We'd flick out with our fingernails the thin papery white ones, check each pulpy mouthful for the slippery disks with our tongues. And so we'd feast, right down to the grin. Now, sometimes I think I must have swallowed just one seed-- as I heave my heft out of a chair or struggle like a turned-over turtle just to get out of bed. Big-bellied watermelon mama, I sense the sprout inside me. Watermelon child-- I conjure your pink flesh, I feel your tentative tendrils uncurl. May you grow as ripe as summer, as succulent as love. Copyright © 2001 Nancy L. Conner