Bare Fruits by Courtenay Schembri Gray

Bare Fruits

Ripe figs pool in starch white knickers and socks;

cowering in the trenches, unprepared for the war.

I was just shy of eleven when they signed me up.

Kissing Barbie goodbye, I waved wearily at my new

companion—an absorbent pad that smelled faintly of roses.

To the peanut gallery, my labia is no longer something

fragile, rather a vessel to be butchered by a baby’s head,

a looming crystal ball pushing through the crimson petals;

fatty white. Rare blue stitches in a domestic line, undercooked.

Arranged on the grass, gagged with cotton balls, blindfolded

with floured leather. Wired, they bury their heads in our bare

fruits, clicking their tongues like mad cows. Iron wrung, we

show them what it’s like to be a blacksmith. Ring my bell, ring

it clear, ring it well. I will know if you put a finger out of place,

up the depressed bead that submits; the wide-mouthed quarry .

They scoop the meat from young coconuts, soft flesh, laboured

impressions. O’ God, don’t let me shake, quiver, or shiver. We

must bleed, bleed into the river.