fruit bats

it helps, sometimes for me 
to think of my body as a piles
of fruit. i find bananas clavicles 
& papaya shoulders. the bees
follow me for my imagination.
the handful of grapes i find 
where there were once mosquito bites.
in the mirror, melon teeth,
my father cutting the honeydew 
over the sink. 

i have always had this habit 
of abstraction. in elementary 
school i took to drawing myself
with animal parts, most frequently
giving myself bat wings. i knew
about bats. i knew that they glided
unlike birds. crudely, i detailed 
the veiny skin beneath each arm.
i made sure to tell people that
i would be a fruit bat but also
that vampire bats live in 
the rain forest & 
won't bite you here.

outback by the porch light
my father would point out bats 
silhouettes against a dusk-blue sky
before the stars arrived with their
bowls of fruit on their hips. 
i wanted to be them, so small & 
mistakable. was that one there?
was that a bird? alone in
bed i would imagine myself 
hanging upside down, hugging myself,
the blankets, the rinds,
making sweet flesh of me.

outback without the porch light
i'm older now & still made of fruit.
it helps when you dislike your body
to make believe with it. i find
my breasts to be oranges. i eat
oranges over the sink because
of all the juice. a man with breasts 
can be a bat. i take the pairing knife,
slice the fruit into sixths.
i offer them in my hands, hoping
a fruit bat will come land & eat 
with me. that he'll tell me what 
he does with his body 
to make it bearable. fruit bats
are also only in the rain forest.
i hang upside down, 
lick the pairing knife.