The Tree Eaters

sit at fresh picnic tables and drink mint juleps, saying:

old oak tastes different than young,

though anything I can snap

between my teeth and cluck with my tongue will satisfy my mouth

but smell drives the drives and feeds the fires.

Cucumber tastes nothing like it smells, but very much the way it looks.

Cantaloupe is the smell of true childhood love.

Old books smell different than young books and you sit there,

reading with your eyes, like vision is the only thing that matters.

I can’t taste fire

it is just a sound in my mouth.

A hiss and then that simple silence: the sound of the heat sinking in.

A terrible weight of pain through my jaw

destroying the bottom half of my summer-song.

So I start to nibble the picnic table with my top teeth

and it tastes exactly as it smells. I tap out, in Morse code;

cucumber, cantalaope, mint;

someday summer will be childhood again. I half-smile

and all the sunflowers bloom and turn in agreement.