To Celebrate My Father

If I could tell about the grapefruit, that would do.

How my father, slight and strong and knowing good,

would hold a solid yellow grapefruit in his hand and dig in. He used his fingers.

He tore the rind, pulled the top away.

In no hurry, he peeled it all by slabs, played the simple pleasure

of separating what was no from what was yes,

doing it with his bare, deciding hands.

He would sing while shearing section from section.

He'd bite through the tough seam of each wrinkled veil. Spitting out the pips and big gray seeds,

he took the bitter right along with every spurt of juice.

All was fine for him to chew to pulp and swallow, his singing hardly slowing as he ate.