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A.K. SHAKOUR
mom claims a man likes a woman who can slice fruit
as little girls she shows us how to wield a knife
how to separate the coral-colored meat
from tough tortoise shell of the cantaloupe.
what she creates are creamsicle crescent moons,
with her blade she slices along the rind
to carve out the jack-o-lantern smile,
like the tooth fairy she collects the cantaloupe teeth
in tupperware container with a missing lid.
when she’s done her demonstration she nods at us,
her daughters who are to become fruit ninjas,
warriors of all things love and produce,
‘cause even though izzy and i are aged 7 and 9
we already know that when boys give girls
a slice of watermelon, they plant a seed
which will grow into a watermelon,
like a baby in a girl’s tummy.
our mom says men will only marry women
who can cut a cantaloupe
while our dad laughs in the living room
if that’s true, i should have never married you,
since it was me who taught you how to do it.
she angrily wraps up the cantaloupe corpse,
it seems we have completed our course.
/ / /
if you were to hand me a melon,
now that i am grown to the ripe old age of 23
i would not be able to sculpt it into a masterpiece,
honestly, i have goldfish-level focus but
my dad’s words remind me that
love sprouts from somewhere deeper
than the surface of a cantaloupe’s skin
my heart is a jack-in-the-box
a clown smiles through my ribs
pops up pops out my anxiety
a candy-cane colored circus tent
elephants balance their entire bodies
on the crystal balls that tell the future,
i desperately want a woman in silk
to read my palms like a road map,
to tell me where to go. where is my passion?
what work will i do? where will i settle?
will i ever find my trapeze partner,
or will the clown inside my chest
endlessly bonk it’s horn, for no one.
all of these thoughts are bowling pins
meant to juggle, but i knock them over
in my big brown Blundstones. i want to pull
a resume out of my hat, a silky white rabbit
for employers to gasp at. but instead my bunny
has left, it is late for a very important date.
i want be a Houdini, saw myself in half,
i saw myself as a half a writer, a wanderer,
but now i wonder whether if my eyes
have played a trick on me,
in a hall of funhouse mirrors
i do not know who i am meant to be.
maybe i can magically scatter
bits of me everywhere
Poet's Description
I wrote "my heart is a jack-in-the-box" one evening when I was feeling very anxious about my life and what direction it would take. The uncertainties that the future holds made me have a bit of a panic attack in my room. However, by writing my feelings down helped ground me in the moment. Transforming my anxiety in a metaphorical way made me feel a bit more hopeful, in spite of my worries.
A.K. SHAKOUR
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A.K Shakour has a bachelor's degree from The University of British Columbia in English literature, with a minor in creative writing. She has work published in Room Magazine, yolk literary, orange peel mag, and others. She has one dog and a plethora of potted plants that desperately need to be watered.