A slice of watermelon perches
on a cabinet, in a print, caught in a frame
above the fireplace in my mother's house.

It's tipped slightly, as if to say-
I am moving in the right direction,
could cartwheel off this ledge and

turn my half moon smile to the waxed
wood planks, the bricks and soot and
metal playthings that make fire.  Each

of my seeds could eat its way through
time and gravity and plant itself under
the floor.  This is what good art does,

makes you schizophrenic.  It talks in your
own voice in your own ears, through glass,
through frames, through walls.  The eye

of the cabinet pointed at my forehead
in the exact place where the watermelon
is dripping loud, sweet words.