Artemis~

 

 The Watermelon

 Every summer, I eat watermelon. 

When it’s not sweet, I don’t enjoy it, 
yet I keep eating it as if it were. 
I feel like, when I was a child, 
watermelon was always sweet. 
I once reflected on this strange thought 
while riding the metro, laughing 
to myself as I often do. Then I thought, 
what does it matter, if it makes me smile? 
I used to believe that, as children, 
everything seems to carry a greater “sense 
of sweetness.” 
But that wasn’t the case here. 
When I was little, the watermelon was sweet 
because my grandfather would cut out the “heart” 
for me to eat — that’s what he called it. 
The center part is always a little sweeter. 
I’ve forever associated watermelon with my grandfather. 
After his summer meals, he’d always cut 
a huge slice, which back then 
looked to me like a giant boat. 
When I was younger, I couldn’t quite reach 
the table, so from my tiny perspective, 
I could only see his head rising 
above that enormous boat. 
He would always get annoyed, 
eating his boat that didn’t have 
the sweet part, and I had already learned 
to shout, “I want the heart!” 
But he always gave it to me — 
along with his own heart. 
And so, my summers smelled 
like watermelon boats 
that were always sweet. 
And when someone dear to me once described 
a sea that smelled like watermelon, 
I thought: maybe somewhere, 
my grandpa’s watermelon boat was sailing. 
This year, I’ll try a watermelon heart. 
I hope it’s sweet.