"Ode to a Grapefruit" by Oliver

Image by Hagar Lotte Geyer from Pixabay

The slimy grapefruit was the eye of the crocodile
until the day two hunters lurked out from the shadows of the fruit
aisle
and beheaded him.
They reached into his head
And pulled out his eye
And washed it in a kitchen sink
And that was the beginning of the tangy, acidic grapefruit’s cold-shelved journey.

Sister to the lemon and cousin to the orange.
Sour as pickles from the deli.
Round as a roly-poly bug when it gets scared
she was a wonder, an impossible phenomenon. 
Unfortunately, society sees grapefruits as inferior.

To be murdered and sliced open with serrated knives
and devoured.
To be celebrated for its taste but not its character,
that’s why the grapefruit walks around in mortal fear.
Her insides, pink as the eraser on a pencil, will be eaten
And her life will come to an end.
And she is painfully right.

One day when she is chilling at the supermarket
chit-chatting with her fellow grapefruits
a middle-aged mother, who looks awfully hungry,
grabs her and separates her from her family
And slices her bumpy outside open, slowly and painfully
And digs into her gut with a sharp grapefruit spoon
And takes a bite into the juicy grapefruit,
soft as a bald head,
the plump, spherical, citrusy earth of miracles.

Oliver is 12 years old; he lives in Manhattan, New York.  Oliver disclosed that he was eleven when he wrote "Ode to a Grapefruit;"  he is currently working on a science fiction novel.