On a hot and steamy afternoon,
my friend Raisa fingers her tight dark curls,
says let’s pick quenepa
and so, in cutoffs and sunglasses,
we meander through Santo Domingo’s alleys
down side streets,
cross the baseball field,
to the old cemetery
where our secret grove
blooms with fruit among the headstones.
We pluck the ovoid green dupes,
prize them open with fingernails and thumbs
suck on the salmon-coloured flesh,
until the juice dripples down our throats,
sometimes sweet, sometimes tart.
We will grow older from here.
We will leave school, find jobs,
meet guys, have relationships,
maybe travel like I have done
or stay behind, in the same neighbourhood,
where Raisa will share a small apartment
not two blocks from her family home.
I’ll shop in food-stores
that don’t stock quenepa.
She’s sure to forget what those tiny fruit
ever tasted like.
No more orchard at the edge of the cemetery.
Our privacy will be ours alone.
Juanita Rey is a Dominican poet who has been in Rhode Island five years. Her work has been published in Mixed Mag, The Mantle and Lion & Lilac.