Cracked with the strain

While journeying home
I dream of a house
and in the house a room
and in the room a table
and on the table a wooden bowl
cracked with the strain of containing.

Fruit of all kinds;
pineapples spike the air with tropical promise
electric oranges, juice ready to burst
at the pressure of my teeth
apples and pears wafting harvest
pomegranates ripe with seed
berries fragrant and fragile
lemons shining yellow
dates dark with syrup
mango lush as a woman’s hip
peaches cleft with down
figs, densely feminine
bananas curved in arcs of invitation
grapes promising wine.

Their scents assail me
a cloud of seduction
beckoning
promising
demanding
whispering to be touched;
smooth and bare
furred and soft
rough and scratching.

Desire stunned, I gape
Breathless.
Though I didn’t know I was hungry
I want to tear off peels
and break off pieces
stuffing my mouth
in a frenzy of feasting.
And after that initial ravishment
to slowly quiet
my still-burning appetite
one fruit
one bite
at a time.

I close my eyes
and the image lingers
verdant
fervent
thirsting to be consumed.

But mine is not this feast.
Though I stretch out my hand
it is beyond my reach.
I can’t let it touch my lips
nor steal a bite
nor feel the tender flesh melting on my tongue.

Mine is to hunger.
The fruit at which I can but stare and breathe
a promise;
the gift not in the eating
but in the yearning.

While journeying home
I dream of a house
and in the house a room
and in the room a table
and on the table a wooden bowl
cracked with the strain of containing.

--Chantelle Franc

Sweet into sweet

Whipped cream melting
into cocoa
your touch dissolving
into me
the two distinct
then swirling
into one

--Chantelle Franc

Jam tomorrow

Today
I hunger for you
hunger for you
today.

--Chantelle Franc

Know me more

In future I may call this the summer of the peach.

I found a longer and a shorter version of this poem, but preferred the shorter (below).

Upon reading, it occurs to me to wonder if the fruit Eve bit was a peach...

Know me more

Share a peach with me
softly ripe
and by it
know me more.

--Chantelle Franc

All curves and sweet intoxication

I am besotted.
As soaked with love
as a wine-steeped pear;
drenched red
with heady sweetness
and the desire
to be consumed.

--Chantelle Franc

An apple by any other name

I sought the impossible;
a word to describe you.
The closest I came
was
delicious.

--Chantelle Franc

No thin veneer

do you think
the purple passion of my love
a thin veneer?
easily cracked?
my love is miles high
and oceans wide
my love is layers thick
and fathoms deep
and any rain of hurt that falls
will water the fruit
which ripens on love's peak

--Chantelle Franc

Watermelon in the sun

I am as ripe with loving you
as a watermelon in the sun
which at the gentlest touch of a knife
cleaves open in a burst of juice and seed.

--Chantelle Franc