The cantaloupe sits

on the counter like

a little moon

                                swatted

off its course. 
Outside, grassy

undertones

and modest navel, 
inside, a wall
 
of pale orange fruit

and inside that

a child's night terror
of seeds and guts and string.

It is no matter:

The kitchen has

its own astronomy.

The instant the cutting edge
pierces the rind — flesh
 
yielding to steel —

the gig is up.

We simply eat.
              Outside the rain

arrests itself. A false sun

flourishes for the afternoon.

              Inside his bus
the busdriver sighs

ignoring if just

for an hour, the terrible

pair of pants

              knockkneed and

abandoned in

the empty seat.
How to hold it

all together: the violence

of the harvest, the embarrassment

of the blade. In his heart
of hearts, the buzzard

knows he is digestible.

He scans the plain:

Too much wild life.
He shakes the daylight

off his wings

and waits for the earth

to cough up the fruit,

for the night to bring

the knife. 
Emily Bedard is our Poet in Residence for November.


Previously: Finale, and Once Upon an Accountant.