Art by Amin Alizadeh
my dad introduced me to perseemons
‘Anak, want me to cut you perseemon?’
‘Anak, that perseemon isn’t ripe yet’
‘Anak, I bought 12 perseemon for cheap!’
trips to Henlong market
a firm grip and a rotating inspection
putting back the bad ones–
how could any of them be bad?
they all deserve to be eaten!
my dad would peel perseemons for me
right after slicing aromatics for dinengdeng
the same knife paring through in ten seconds
the skin would come spiraled in one piece
i’d enjoy sweetness in faint onion essence
i wanted to eat perseemons under the sun
i thought they’d be good fruits to eat
at Cultus lake, backs slathered in sunblock
before cannonballs and flutter kicks
‘perseemon is not in season, anak.’
they asked me what fruit i liked best
glistening in my pyrex lunch container,
easily, ‘perseemons’
‘perseemons? What’s that?’
what a rare fruit!
nobody else knows what perseemons are!
how lucky am i?!
/
i remember when you and i
roamed around by Cheonggyecheon Stream,
far from the last train,
watching the billowing plumes from fast fashion towers
and sleepy backwards hustles
persimmon tree in front of the hostel drooping low,
fruit falling hard, spilling vibrant fire juice
baking bruised in the sun and rotten saturation,
flies burrowing into the fermented fruit flesh,
curled in our bunks,
dreaming of teeth sinking into a syrupy persimmon mass,
glowing juice racing down my chin,
splattering on my good white linen pants,
a bright tangerine
the next morning, we ate our egg sandwiches
by the tree swaying from the October gusts
catching falling perseemons,
eating them unpeeled.
aren’t I the luckiest girl?!
Christine J. is a Filipina Canadian emerging writer and is currently teaching English in southern Japan. She holds a BA in English literature from SFU, and is finding her footing in the creative writing world. Her writing delves into themes of culture, self, and connections to people and places. In her spare time, she likes to run, sing karaoke, study Japanese, and write short stories she’ll probably never finish. You can check out her multimedia and writing-related endeavours at @stylostine on Instagram, and read about her experiences at https://stylostine.medium.com/.