Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach
Week 34: Cantaloupe
The first color they see
is red. The second,
a deeper still. Your son
asks about blood. Wants
to see it rise to the surface.
There are times you forget
to flush. He sees traces.
Bites his tongue or the inside
of his cheek while eating
cantaloupe. Red streaks
the fruit’s flesh. Rock
melon. Skin like the moon’s.
He asks why his mouth
fills with pennies. Copper.
The shade orange turns
when mixed with blood.
The taste of oxidization.
Too much air and rust.
He asks you to kiss
his tongue and inside
where it hurts. Asks you
to sing about hands because
the other night, you wept
singing and he was charmed,
delighted even, by the startle
of your crying. Why are you
crying, Mama? You lied
it was a sad song. Said nothing
of where you’re hurting.
Closed your eyes
and sang in the womblike
dark of his bedroom
about the man in love
who begs the bells
to ring again so the one
he loves would return home
and he would kiss her
chapped, red hands.
Julia Kolchinksy Dasbach emigrated from Ukraine as a Jewish refugee when she was six years old. She is the author of three poetry collections: The Many Names for Mother, winner the Wick Poetry Prize (Kent State University Press, 2019), finalist for the Jewish Book Award; Don’t Touch the Bones (Lost Horse Press, 2020), winner of the 2019 Idaho Poetry Prize; and 40 WEEKS, forthcoming from YesYes Books in 2023. Her poems appear in POETRY, Blackbird, American Poetry Review, and The Nation, among others. She holds an MFA from the University of Oregon and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Pennsylvania. She is the new Murphy Fellow in Poetry at Hendrix College and recently relocated to Little Rock, Arkansas with her two kids, a cat, a dog, and a husband.
