My favorite poem

This is my favorite poem which I read and memorized at Pius High School many years ago. I still can recall the cadence of speaking the poem as I recited in class.

Reflections On a Gift of Watermelon Pickle

Received from a

Friend Called Felicity

by John Tobias (1966)

During that summer

When unicorns were still possible;

When the purpose of knees

Was to be skinned;

When shiny horse chestnuts

(Hollowed out

Fitted with straws

Crammed with tobacco

Stolen from butts

In family ashtrays)

Were puffed in green lizard silence

While straddling thick branches

Far above and away

From the softening affects

Of civilization;



During that summer-

Which may never have been at all;

But which has become more real

Than the one that was-

Watermelons ruled.

Thick pink imperial sheaves

Melting frigidly on sun parched tongues

Dribbling from chins;

leaving the best part,

The black bullet seeds,

To be spit out in rapid fire

Against the wall

Against the wind

Against each other;



And when the ammunition was spent,

There was always another bite;

It was a summer of limitless bites,

Of hungers quickly left

And quickly forgotten

With the next careless gorging.



The bites are fewer now.

Each one is savored lingeringly,

Swallowed reluctantly.



But in a jar put up by Felicity,

The summer which maybe never was

Has been captured and preserved

And when we unscrew the lid

And slice off a piece

And let it linger on our tongue:

Unicorns become possible again.
 
 
Have a peaceful night.