Fresh Fruit

Passing the church kitchen

The smell of fruit

Sticky and sweet

My grandmother and great aunts

Chop melons and pineapples with

The force of lumberjacks

It is silent but for the sound

Of knives and arm fat jiggling

These no nonsense women

They cannot afford the sin of gossip

No brush of affection as I pass

No indulgent pop of ripe melon into their mouth

Fruit is efficiently scooped into Dixie cups

Stabbed with a plastic fork

Despite all this, it tastes like love to me