Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Fredonia, NY Of course I regret it. I mean there I was under umbrellas of fruit so red they had to be borne of Summer, and no other season. Flip-flops and fishhooks. Ice cubes made of lemonade and sprigs of mint to slip in blue glasses of tea. I was dusty, my ponytail all askew and the tips of my fingers ran, of course,red from the fruitwounds of cherries I plunked into my bucket and still—he must have seen some small bit of loveliness in walking his orchard with me. He pointed out which trees were sweetest, which ones bore double seeds—puffing out the flesh and oh the surprise on your tongue with two tiny stones (a twin spit), making a small gun of your mouth. Did I mention my favorite color is red? His jeans were worn and twisty around the tops of his boot; his hands thick but careful, nimble enough to pull fruit from his trees without tearing the thin skin; the cherry dust and fingerprints on his eyeglasses. I just know when he stuffed his hands in his pockets, said Okay. Couldn't hurt to try? and shuffled back to his roadside stand to arrange his jelly jars and stacks of buckets, I had made a terrible mistake. I just know my summer would've been full of pies, tartlets, turnovers—so much jubilee.

I blush quicker than a school of blue jack mackerel arranging itself into an orb of dazzle to avoid nips and gulps from the dolphins who’ve been silently trailing them, waiting for them to relax. When I hear her growl—her scratch-thirst and giggle when she drops swear words pressed to wax—I can’t even look him in the eye when I ask him to give it a good listen with me. But he does, ever patient, and we both get a light bless of sweat on, a bright address that still maps us to each other after all this time. When I read him the lyrics, the pink of my cheeks is like the pink of an orchid mantis. Just when you least expect it, the pretend flower will reach out and snatch a butterfly from the air. When I say flower I mean how her song blooms in the cicada-electric Mississippi night. When I say pink I mean nectar I mean a long kiss good and sweet.

When it comes to clothes, make an allowance for the unexpected. Be sure the spare in the trunk of your station wagon with wood paneling isn’t in need of repair. A simple jean jacket says Hey, if you aren’t trying to smuggle rare Incan coins through this peaceful little town and kidnap the local orphan, I can be one heck of a mellow kinda guy. But no matter how angry a man gets, a smile and a soft stroke on his bicep can work wonders. I learned that male chests also have nipples, warm and established— green doesn’t always mean envy. It’s the meadows full of clover and chicory the Hulk seeks for rest, a return to normal. And sometimes, a woman gets to go with him, her tiny hands correcting his rumpled hair, the cuts in his hand. Green is the space between water and sun, cover for a quiet man, each rib shuttling drops of liquid light.

Some girls        on the other side of this planet will never know        the loveliness of   walking      in a crepe silk sari.      Instead, they will spend        their days                          on their backs for a parade               of   men           who could be       their uncles in another life.         These girls memorize each slight wobble                  of   fan blade as it cuts through the stale       tea air and auto-rickshaw exhaust,        thick as egg curry. Men         shove greasy rupees        at the door for one hour         in a room with a twelve-year-old.                One hour —               One hour — One hour.            And if   she cries afterward, her older sister       will cover it up.         Will rim the waterline             of   her eyes                 with kohl pencil until it looks like                        two silk moths have stopped      to rest       on her exquisite     face.

a.) When I was twelve, I lived on the grounds of a mental asylum. b). My Filipino mother was a psychiatrist, so that meant we lived in the doctor’s quarters— one of the three big brick houses that edged the institute. c). My younger sister and I practiced Herkies— our favorite cheerleading jumps— off the patients’ bleachers near the softball field. d). When I was twelve, I aced the experiments with celery and food coloring; they let me skip a whole grade and get right to The Dissections. e). I secretly wished my supply of grape Bubble Yum would never run out but I couldn’t figure out how to blow bubbles and snap the lavender gum like Sara could. f). We sold gift wrap and crystals for a junior high fund-raiser and my mom still asks Where are all the crystals I bought? and Why don’t you display them in your house? g). When I was twelve, I worried about the darkening hair on my legs. My mother bought me my first training bra— no cup, just little triangle pieces stitched together— and then a slice of New York-style cheesecake to bring home. h). Home. i). When I was twelve, our house always smelled of fried lumpia or ginger. j). We had zinnias as wide as my outstretched hand nodding at us in our garden. k). My school had to create a whole new bus stop just for my sister and me, and everyone stopped talking and stared when we stepped onto the bus each morning, smelling of grape gum and ginger roots. l.) Just who are these girls?

Too many needles spoil the cloth. Too many parrots spoil the talk. Too many chapped lips spoil the gloss. Too many teasel burs spoil the paw. Too many bubbles spoil the froth. Too many doorbells spoil the knock. Too many seeds spoil the floss. Too many feathers spoil the claw. Too many lightbulbs spoil the moth. Too many holes spoil the sock. Too many sunbeams spoil the moss. Too many kisses spoil the jaw. Too many wolves spoil the flock. Too many necks spoil the block.

Give me a church made entirely of salt. Let the walls hiss and smoke when I return to shore. I ask for the grace of a new freckle on my cheek, the lift of blue and my mother’s soapy skin to greet me. Hide me in a room with no windows. Never let me see the dolphins leaping into commas for this water-prayer rising like a host of sky lanterns into the inky evening. Let them hang in the sky until they vanish at the edge of the constellations — the heroes and animals too busy and bright to notice.

Lotan Baba, a holy man from India, rolled on his side for four thousand kilometers across the country in his quest for world peace and eternal salvation. — Reuters He started small: fasting here and there, days, then weeks. Once, he stood under a banyan tree for a full seven years, sitting for nothing—not even to sleep. It came to him in a dream:You must roll on this earth, spin your heart in rain, desert, dust. At sunrise he’d stretch, swab any cuts from the day before, and lay prone on the road while his twelve men swept the ground in front of him with sisal brooms. Even monkeys stopped and stared at this man rolling through puddles, past storefronts where children would throw him pieces of butter candy he’d try and catch in his mouth at each rotation. His men swept and sang, swept and sang of jasmine-throated angels and pineapple slices in kulfi cream. He rolled and rolled. Sometimes in his dizzying spins, he thought he heard God. A whisper, but still.

I’ve noticed after a few sips of tea, the tip of her tongue, thin and red with heat, quickens when she describes her cuts and bruises—deep violets and red. The little girl I baby-sit, hair orange and wild, sits splayed and upside down on a couch, insists her giant book of dinosaurs is the only one she’ll ever read. The night before I left him, I could not sleep, my eyes fixed on the freckles of his shoulder, the glow of the clock, my chest heavy with dread. Scientists say they’ll force a rabbit to a bird, a jellyfish with a snake, even though the pairs clearly do not mix. Some things are not meant to be bred. I almost forgot the weight of a man sitting beside me in bed sheets crumpled around our waists, both of us with magazines, laughing at the thing he just read. He was so charming—pointed out planets, ghost galaxies, an ellipsis of ants on the wall. And when he kissed me goodnight, my neck reddened. I’m terrible at cards. Friends huddle in for Euchre, Hearts—beg me to play with them. When it’s obvious I can clearly win with a black card, I select a red. I throw away my half-finished letters to him in my tiny pink wastebasket, but my aim is no good. The floor is scattered with fire hazards, declarations unread.

Miracle fruit changes the tongue. One bite, and for hours all you eat is sweet. Placed alone on a saucer, it quivers like it's cold from the ceramic, even in this Florida heat. Small as a coffee bean, red as jam— I can't believe. The man who sold it to my father on Interstate 542 had one tooth, one sandal, and called me "Duttah, Duttah." I wanted to ask what is that, but the red buds teased me into our car and away from his fruit stand. One bite. And if you eat it whole, it softens and swells your teeth like a mouthful of mallow. So how long before you lose a sandal and still walk? How long before you lose the sweetness?