You pair the skin off.
It falls in crescents.
In your palm remains the stitched moon,
you turn it round, bringing the tide in with it.
The grapefruit squeezes your hand.
It is begging you to eat it.
For years the orange fruits have been getting bigger
and you haven’t noticed a thing.
The thing in your grasp is a bold-faced lie.
The grapefruit is unimpressed by your utensil collection.
You stick the full fruit in your mouth, knowing full well it is inedible.
You know doing this will turn you into a blood-sucking vampire.
You work your tongue through each pearled cell,
there are no seeds to bite into.
This is the final fruit in its bloodline.
The grapefruit asks you what you taste.
You say that the white membrane is like the webbed skin
about the thumb. That it’s sourness is subdued,
none of the cheeriness to white wine or lemon.
You notice a note or two of grape.
It is not proper to eat the skin, the grapefruit reminds you.
Elijah Freiman is a second-year at Oberlin College majoring in Food Studies. He can be found in Tank Coop eating food out of a large pan. It is his dream to one day taste raw milk. His favorite poem about food might be Onions by William Matthews.
