What My Friend Says When She Gives Me a Persimmon

It tastes like your first kiss
but you have to let it ripen
until you almost think it's too late,
the beautiful bright body spoiled,
that's when it's best, that's when you open up
the flesh, that's when you want to

lay it on your tongue and savor it,
not really like your first kiss but more like
oral sex, though I wouldn't say that
in public, I couldn't eat one
with a stranger with so much
private hunger going on.

Poems by Melody Lacina: