Pitahaya

Teach me a fruit of  your country I asked and so you dipped into a shop and in your hand held me a thick yellow pinecone no knife between us you put it to your teeth sideways like a bird and bit and peeled away the fleshy scales or were they petals crisp white at the core peppered with black seeds sweet and light like a cold cloud like some exotic sherbet carried hand over hand from a mountaintop by a relay of runners straightway to the Inca’s high table we sat on metal chairs still pebbled with rain the seat of my pants damp we passed it back and forth no matter how carefully we could not help spilling the juice making our cheeks sticky our fingers getting sticky our fingers no not even once touching