May 5: Watermelon Pickle

I made watermelon pickles because of the poem. Put them up in a single jar alongside jams and cucumber pickles. When I opened them a few months later, tried one, I realized the poet had never actually tried a watermelon pickle. There was nothing summer about them. They were clove and cinnamon, dark brown: Christmas.


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From the poem:

But in a jar put up by Felicity,
The summer which maybe never was
Has been captured and preserved.
And when we unscrew the lid
And slice off a piece
And let it linger on our tongue:
Unicorns become possible again.