Poetry by Ursula McCabe
This morning I sliced into a cantaloupe
with ripe musky aromas.
Orange flesh unfolds as I split
the pock marked rind.
Opening up this soft melon
releases an aria of river floating times.
Years ago I rafted down the Salmon River,
an Idaho primitive wilderness area.
We returned home in a panel van
with too many people and a leftover cantaloupe
that had gone uneaten.
Six of us had drifted down the old river
through canyons with 100 foot basalt walls.
Rainbow trout practically
jumped in the boat, pink membrane mouths
puckering up as we slipped barbless hooks
out with our slippery fingers.
After churning rapids tumbled rafts
we warmed ourselves around campfires.
Flickering orange sparks skipped up to the stars,
where a fat round moon looked down.
That moon was as sweet and soft
as the cantaloupe I’m eating right now.
Ursula McCabe lives in Portland Oregon. Poems can be found in Oregon Poetry Association’s Verseweavers Anthology, Piker Press, The Avocet and Academy of the Heart and Mind.
