Scrape spoon behind the mess,
cut heart from the hollow.

This is love. A tenderness,
the way we reach the sweetness.

Gentleness is a wild carnivore.
Hear them howling for melons

in the ruins. Scoop out
the seeds, and the cavity

becomes a parabola worth
crooning into. A lupine song.

Eat this: floral and orange.
Winds change. Melons roll.

Let’s let Rome fall. Save the fruit
and the singing. Don’t waste

lambent August waiting—
tonight the sky is an arpeggio

of stars, glittering like fangs.