a midsummer’s fruit fight

think plum. think me.
think deep purple, dark purple,
purple thin skin.
skin dark as twilight being pried from day’s hands,
slipping swiftly, sinking, slinking.
think puncturing teeth revealing
a fibrous, tendinous, sinewy red—
no, orange—no, pink. it’s a sunset!
it’s flesh.
it’s not just womb, no, it’s placenta.
it’s life in all its glory, it’s bearer of seed.
I am overripe.
I am clinging to my tree branch,
swinging in the wind.
but I am sweet and ready,
red and sweaty.

let’s have a fruit fight.
pluck those plums, pick those branches raw.
fill buckets and baskets until the purple blood flows,
flows into the grass and forms sticky residue on every finger,
every bare leg.
pick one up, yes, and throw it here.
now approach me. squeeze the plums into my hair,
allow their gore to slip down the neck of my shirt.
press one to my mouth and force me to bite.
don’t let me wipe.
no, let the blood run.
turn my white shirt wine.
let my forearms stick to yours as I graze these fruits
on your shoulders, scrub them down your arms.
stand there and let me press them onto your head.
don’t wipe the trickling juice as it drips down your brow.

we will assess the bloodbath once done.
all that wasted fruit, all that wasted sugary flesh,
all that broken skin.
but they were dead on arrival, dead as soon as we plucked them
from those trees.
this is violence for the sake of violence,
desecration of those deceased.
this is a thirst for blood, quenched.
this is sanguine satisfaction,
succulent sex.