Watermelons are boys.
What else explains it?
Look at the mess they make of gardens,
growing sleek as torpedoes or
round as basketballs
under a tangle of greenery
impossible to tame.

Nothing like cantaloupe.
They’re ladies,
voluptuous and full,
sunning themselves amidst the flowers,
accenting their decolletage
with a filigree of white lace
over the swell of their budding fruit.

Watermelons wear camouflage
and wallow in the mud,
their skin hard and shiny
from all that water they slurp.
Thump one on the head
all you hear is hollow thunk.
Sniff one, all you smell is dirt.

Cantaloupe are subtle.
They know girl games
and the value of pastels,
working a palette from pale green to golden yellow
to get what they want.
They’re full of secrets and seeds
guarded like riches deep inside.

Cut into a watermelon
they stare at you with naked contempt,
promising a fight to the end:
a buried minefield of
slick black seeds
lurking under all that blood
red flesh.

Cantaloupe know how to behave in public.
They invite the knife,
seduce the spoon.
They are there to be scooped
in modest mouthfuls,
treasured on the tongue for their sweet
orangy fullness.