loquat season

little poem about fleeting sweetness

Picture this: You picked me 
A loquat from the tree outside your apartment,
Reaching tip-toed and tipsy into the branches for barely 
A palmful of fruit, a snapshot of sweetness on the lips, 
An appetite shared post-pact, flood of flesh and fruit
Beneath chins and cheeks, hints in tangled tree 
Limbs twisted together underneath the moonlight
Where I hesitated for too long to hold your hand.

I’m a pessimist and I did my research: 
Loquats ripen quickly and are vulnerable 
To bruising, spoiling, short shelf life 
For short-lived sweetness outside 
Your apartment on the walk to the car under 
The moonlight on the night you hooked me,
Stomach, sense, ego, and all, fugitive 
Fruit thief in the cool shelter of diffidence 
And fleeting thin-skinned lust.

I want you post-peak-ripeness:
I want you humming and making tea, brushing your teeth 
with one hand around my waist, I crave your sighing at the sun 
in the morning, teasing me with a tug to my keychain
At the door on my way to work. Every bruise 
And blemish to treasure that taste 
On my tongue.

So here we are now, sticky-lipped:
You showed me how to peel back the skin
To a new taste, spit the pit, teeth sunk 
Deep into something softer, too soft for me 
To wise up my guard, too delicate
To tough out the test of time, juice
Dripping into palm, too quick
to catch, too sweet to last 
Longer than loquat season.