Lorelei Kay

THOSE TANTALIZING REDS    

From grocery bins they beckon, plump

     in their ripe beauty, round and full

     of nature’s textured nectar, begging

     to be thumped, hefted, and carted home.

One now sits on my kitchen counter,

     reminiscent of home, long ago.

     And Mom.

     Oh, how she loved her watermelon.

In the heat of July, she’d buy three or four—

     one for now, the others to cool on the grass 

     under draped towels with hoses dripping cool 

     water down their smooth sides.

After she’d serve us our slices, we’d eat

     and laugh, as the red juice dribbled down

     our fingers and ran in sticky streams 

     down our arms. Juice the color of her hair.

Then came the summer the kitchen floor 

     wore through. These two cosmic events— 

     Mom’s love of melon and the worn linoleum 

     floor, lie ever entwined in my mind.

New floors cost money and Dad’s pockets 

     were bare. But Mom was an artist 

     and also, a redhead. These two facts 

     explained a lot.

First, everything she drug from the kitchen, 

     until an empty floor, her canvas, appeared. 

     Pale charcoal in hand, she sketched a half 

     melon, its rind radiating out to the edges

of the room. Then she gathered her artistic 

     supplies—palette, brushes, tubes of multi-hued

     paints. She’d paint over the worn out and old

     with fresh smelling and new.

Dawn found her mixing greens of emerald,

     spring leaf and thyme, blending just the right

     shades for the melon’s outer shell.

     The greens crept into each corner,

under the crevices by the sink,

     around the stove which refused to move,

     under the windows overlooking her garden.

     Then she edged with a circle of pale-mist,

which separated the rind from the empty

     center core. Now it must dry so she could

     kneel on the greens all around to paint the red

     center which would dominate the floor.

Then, like a goddess creating the earth,

     she moved round the orb applying loving

     strokes of red vermillion, bits of scarlet,

     touches of crimson. 

A day passed, then another, as she blended

     her colors to watermelon perfection. As dusk

     approached on the third day, she mixed final

     swirls of pale yellow with softest cloud white.

Pushing strands of auburn hair back from

     her freckles, she observed her creation.

     A few more black seeds needed there.

     Another here?  No. Just like that.

Looking over her work she beheld

     a melon worthy of Eden’s first garden.

     And she pronounced her artwork— 

     Good. 

Yes, Mom loved her watermelon. 

     Never was there a daughter more blessed

     than I, because I had a kitchen-

     floor-painting, red-headed Mom.