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I don’t know how to pick out a good melon. It has something to do with scent—a sweetness and musk. The melon should feel heavier than it looks. There’s a trick with the stem end, I think. Press it and there should be a certain amount of yield— a give that indicates the perfect ripeness. This is guesswork for me. I’m gambling whenever I open a melon and taste it for the first time. I'm disappointed far more often than pleased. But the bitter and too-firm bites are worth the eventual glory of an immaculate fruit. And there is arrogance, too. I deserve to bring goodness home. Don’t you? We set the fruit on our plates and wonder if it hides a secret name. Does it have a mother and father? We stare into its creation. It glistens. We drop our forks and eat the orange orb with our bare hands. To be human is to know this kind of feast— to know the urge to devour the rind. To consume is to possess. To possess all of it, we must travel the universe. With sugar in our teeth, we expand and expand. Alone at our kitchen tables, we become interstellar gods swallowing small planets.
Hope you're feeling better. And a love of a poem. My mother used to smell the stem end in the store--so you're right! My father drove my mother to the store for groceries and waited in the car while she picked out sweet-smelling melons.
Beautiful. The final stanza hits home. Nails it.