By ANNABELLE FULLER
you make my mouth water as if I’ve crushed a
cantaloupe or clementine
or other yielding fruit between my teeth ,
or like a pomegranate split -
so many seeds that it’s chaotic .
my jaw asphyxiates some small satsuma segments .
sticky . glossy .
the movement’s more erratic than erotic .
if I could shave the rind and smoke it
in arresting zesty Rizlas then I would ;
I find a nectarine sufficiently narcotic .
turn my attention to a tangerine .
I peel them without thinking .
pull into pieces , panic about the pips
within the syrup that I’m drinking .
my portioning’s perfunctory , robotic .
I’ve dwelt upon you more than a strawberry has pores .
I feel the need to count them : this is noxious and neurotic .
a kumquat squats within my fist ,
nesting in the folds of flesh .
I hold it and I press
until it ruptures with the slaver of a waterfall
that ramifies and roars - exotic .
dates and raisins languish - more prudish than a prune ,
ambiguous and anguished
as a summer afternoon .
their dream is to be eaten ;
I quail when I see them, so quenchless and quixotic .
you’ve made me whine and wince ,
cry and cringe like a crippled quince .
each of my eyes seems teardrop-dyed,
a terracotta-stung sclerotic.
I wail with mouth agape ,
fit to embrace unbitten grapes .
though my tongue might shun the punnets ,
all those lovely little lung-like bunches
prepped to be popped / to penetrate .
my heart’s been hewn to a pear’s unseemly shape ,
far from idyllic -
warped , distorted , idiotic .
time to pluck a lime . the hand that wields the knife is mine ,
a pendulum dividing pith and pulp :
I mesmerise .
the violent slicing of each vesicle’s hypnotic . I let the citric liquid loose
till my fingers glitter with bitterness like I’m sweating lemon juice . it rules the kingdom of my skin , severe , despotic . you make my eyes water as if a plum’s been pulverised upon my skull . could coalesce with my saliva ; symbiotic .