They sit in piles, in bins at the entry way
of every grocery store this summer—
camouflaged with wavy green, smooth as jade,
knowing how to coolly hold all their secrets in.
Inside, the smaller ones— personal size— keep
company with crenshaws, muskmelons, casabas.
Get past the tough-guy exterior to find
the core of sweetness, a cotton candy texture.
But this is not that poem about eating
the Buddha’s smile, then spitting out his teeth.
Neither do I want to think of that scene
from “The Joy Luck Club” where the man plunges
first a knife, then his whole hand, into the belly
of a ripe melon; then fucks the woman standing up,
against the wall of a deserted ballroom. I don’t
want to think of the sound made, a little explosion,
when the fruit is dropped from a height. This is not
a warning, though maybe it could be. So much hidden
sweetness all around. And the heat. Someone’s bound
to smell it, and in some way be driven out of her mind.