as if to say here, let’s just get it over with, the sloppiness
of procreation: its chewing, the lying between teeth, the grind and slurp.
This long slipshod journey, its brief throats of light. So much for
the orange, its zest for foreplay, the slow undressing. How the grapefruit
spits in your eye. All that acid consuming enamel, looking for the last
raw nerve. Then the coconut leaves, crossing oceans on its mission,
hard as a chastity belt. The soft white meat within, you once thought,
key to salvation. Its oil sacred, its milk a sacrament pressed to tongue.
Give me shortcake crumbled beneath a mudslide, thick and clotted
as blood. Red, colour of stop. Red, colour of after caution. You do not
desire this, says the signage of stinging insect. Berries bunched,
bittersweet off vine. Only the strawberry, dangled like a pulsating
heart in its chest. Take it, one says, pulling apart its button
down shirt. Take it all.
Gus Peterson lives and writes in Maine. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming with Frost Meadow Review, Poeming Pigeon, and Pirene’s Fountain. A debut full length collection, Male Pattern, will be published in 2025 by Finishing Line Press.