Doux

How to disappear

My father once told me that
if I ate the watermelon's seeds it would
take root in my stomach
and I would have a watermelon tree
growing inside. It must have scared me,
I avoid eating the seeds to this day
though I never make my mind up why.

Or why my poems sound
like vague rants these days, or exactly
where along the way they lost the softness
they used to have, when did I grow up at last?
But I still keep food in my mouth
a long time before I swallow.
A childhood habit, father says, and
I am grateful to him for remembering,
memory is a long aftertaste to linger in.

I am grateful he remembers something
so tender, I am used to
carrying memory in my heart
like a stone. Last week, my friend told me
how close he was to dying, the tram
halted in front of him before he
realized he was standing
in the middle of the road. I wish
dying was that easy, I wish we could
lose our way somewhere in the city
and disappear, like in the dream
that I had the other day. I wish disappearing
was that easy, like the words that came out all
wrong and disappeared in the wind when
I tried to tell him all about it.

Perhaps, perhaps, if we had more time,
if human lives weren't so short, we could
think differently about things. A little less
seriously, a little more with love, like how
the streets light up in early winter and
envelope the year's sorrow, tenderly,
with infinite patience. Perhaps we could live
like streets then, and stay very still,
with little things walking all over our bodies.

Or we could all be watermelon trees.
With leaf shoots coming out of our
mouths and ears, and roots from the
soles of our feet. Watermelons
don't even grow on trees, but
we could be so happy then.
We would love so much more, with
everything to give, nothing to ask for, with
something alive and growing on the
inside.