1. Every Sunday at noon during the summer the guy next door (Frank by name) treats his kids to a big watermelon. They mill about on the verandah and lawn eating big slices of it, and it is funny to hear, as the well-dressed devout file out of Garside Gospel Church (“Where the HOLY BIBLE IS WHOLLY TAUGHT”) half a block away, bells chiming, neat fussy Frank in a booming voice call out, “Be careful what you do with the seeds.”
2. I’m in my cellar study
keeping cool
writing this poem quickly
because Joan is coming DOWN
with a KNIFE
and a cold
watermelon.
3. bpNichol hates watermelon.
Copyright © 2007 by David W. McFadden, Why Are You So Sad?: Selected Poems of David W. McFadden, Insomniac Press
The Big M
David W. McFadden