The dissection of my torso with a pairing knife
as if I were a seeded watermelon

I'd prefer to be cut slow and gentle
with a pairing knife-- the type of knife 
they only use for sickly-ripe fruit.
I wear bruised brown lips--
all syrup from the impact of kisses--
I'm okay with being taken apart
if you give me the respect
of a strawberry-- the wisdom of a plantain 
or the patient stubble of a white peach 
who was also my grandmother--
the a peach- pit encased in blood
and knee bone--
 
I will warn you that other boys
say that I don't come apart easy--
they gossip that my skin can be like a watermelon--
a seeded watermelon-- oblong and 
wriggling in the cage of the shopping cart--
Bruises on watermelons don't count.

You may have to use pliers--
I've been cinched up tight like
turkey necks and voodoo-- 
sewn shut wire-jaws of the flounder
at the market-- agape and still 
tasting salt water in prayer--

Snap the white lace bra I don't wear anymore--
make the incision 
at the base of my sternum-- 
like Christmas
or birthdays or
other days made for boys
to break bows with pliers--
the pomegranate beads
under my skin will paint the bra violets
the kind of blood only underneath a bruise--
I know you imagined we all bleed
like apples--

Oh! Boys are scared of dissecting me--
they're still scared of growing watermelons
in their stomachs and still stinging from
the last time they mistook an apple
for a rib cage-- for love-- for lips
for bruises-- for Eve-- oh Eve!
Eve who I dissected at the base of the
sternum like a pomegranate just to
see if she looked like me on
the inside-- Eve with the black
seeds and the broken pairing knives
in between her ribs left
over from boys who gave up--
they were always to dull to cut us--
to figure us out--

I was the watermelon and she was the pomegranate--
and we spelled temptation with fractured
bones and brown bruised lips--
she was willing to pretend I was a peach 
if I could forget she was the apple
with the purple blood. 

Cut me with the pairing knife
take your time-- there's lots of seeds.