Ghazal with fruit & absence

There are some fruits that never show up in poems.
You see apples, pomegranates, & figs in poems.

The forbidden knowledge of Eve & Persephone is
as familiar as the ocean & the moon in poems.

You don’t see jackfruit, sunchokes, or cherimoyas
no cucumbers & sea beans of lust in poems.

Starfruit & bottle gourds, like love, are seasonal.
Lovers kiss in the springs & summers of poems.

Lovers barren in winters without each other.
Fruit equals sex & reproduction, or lack of, in poems.

The female body as gateway, as canal, as incubator.
As container to be studied & emptied in poems.

Your favorite still lifes showcase ripe fruits in bowls.
You try to describe how they make you feel in poems.

Your hands want to reach & mouth that color, know
knowledge wastes like fruit if you don’t share it in poems.

You write self-portraits with peach & raspberry cheeks,
not squashy, kumquat butts. The body not real in poems.

I don’t want to be the fruit or the flower, the mother or girl.
What’s left? Sometimes, I never show up in poems.