Homegrown

An enormous brown box appears on my door cam
I can't help but wonder what's inside. 
I see my teen drag it into our home, close the door.

Hours later, back at the house,
I see eight pineapples standing on the counter
lined up like a Playa Bowls establishment,
a brown parcel ripped to shreds on the floor.

A gift from our elders, from my husband's homeland.
The potency of a Maui Gold is hard to render in words.
A fragrance so pure, it serves as a neural highway 
back to his sacred island.

I lean in, take a deep whiff.
The row of crowns are at attention,
poised to saw my face off, while their
brown and waxy green bodies prickle with armor.

With a patience 
we had to muster and hold together,
my child and I await the arrival
of the main recipient.

When he crosses the threshold, 
an hour later, he exclaims, 
"Did my Dad send Maui Gold?" 
and before we can answer:
"I'll grab the knife." 

And then we stand, 
our three to their eight,
one row facing the other,
and we flank him as he takes 
to dispatching the first offering.

He holds its spiny top and twists, hard,  
like breaking the neck of a chicken. 
He throws the greenery into the trash;
picks up a bread knife with his other hand.

He shaves off the leathery skin 
flexing a muscle memory 
forged in childhood.
Turning and cutting, 
whirling and slicing. 

Soon the cutting board 
reflects gleaming mirror images 
of golden fruit chunks that ease 
into each other, soft and ready.

We descend upon the prone tidbits 
and soon our hands are sticky
with our greed, grabbing 
piece after piece of bright, 
warm, sweet fruit
bringing them to our mouths, 
eating, oohing, 
and going back to the dwindling pile.

We fall silent 
as we each enter our own trance, 
transported back 
to the volcanic island 
that nurtured our loved one into the man 
who stands here feeding us today.

Were I to be asked yesterday, 
"Does it make any financial sense 
to ship ripe pineapple 
from Maui to the Mainland?"
I would have answered:
Absolutely Not. 

But in this dripping, lush, 
fragrant paradise that I am steeped in, 
mouth slick with juices, 
teeth lodged with pineapple fibers,
cloaked in a sunshine and balmy breeze,
I would amend my answer to:

If you love someone enough 
to send them their home in a box,
then the answer is:
Yes, 
yes, 
yes.