Chadeau

By Aaliyah Kjersti

Your skin is taut with ripeness

As she picks you from your evergreen tree

Her skin, like an ill fitted satin glove

Glides over yours with ease

She finds the bumps and hollows of your flesh

And slits you open

In half, you lie on foreign wood

The sun greets your pale insides as

She peers over your kaleidoscope of seeds

It doesn’t hurt

When she halves you again

And again before drowning you

In boiling hot water

When you emerge from the canari

She splits skin from flesh

And you meet lime peels, cinnamon bark

And the blades of the blender

This September, siklón is fómhar

She isn’t here to mix you with milk

Sugar and nutmeg, to strain you into the softest

Of beverages, yet

As I gather pinecones under the deciduous trees

My skin is plump with ripeness