Christmas, with Fruits

Atlanta, 1988. The living room of a modest
apartment. A gathering of friends, all
in our twenties. Someone sprawls in a papasan
chair. On the futon, a cozy trio slouch,
their legs backrests for the people on the floor.
Someone’s cheek nuzzles another’s shoulder,
and I stretch out on the rug, prop on an elbow.
It’s nighttime, and our bellies are full
of holiday potluck fare. 

Someone suggests a game I’ve never played,
called Swamp. Each person picks a fruit.
Orange. Banana. Plum. Those who know
the game pick papaya, pomegranate, kiwi,
cantaloupe. All at once, we enunciate
and repeat our chosen fruit. In the rainbow
flickering of twinkle lights, we transform
into a chorus of frogs and toads,
insects, critters hanging out at the swamp
at night. We sustain our chant,
a serious endeavor. Then someone gets
the giggles, and laughter overtakes our swamp,
but we play again, with different fruits.
And where are our families? We don’t know— 

but it’s easy to imagine them
after their feasts, finished with church
for the year (did they pray for us?),
attention turned to football on TV.
The kitchen mostly clean, the slew
of new toys and socks and sweaters and ties
already put away, untorn
wrapping paper folded and ribbons stashed,
the men’s stiff new leather wallets stuffed
with cash and credit cards, the women
adorned in jewels and gold they’ll soon
return. They’ve eaten their fill
and more, loosened belts, and chewed
chalky Tums, but burps rise
in their throats and get choked back
with a sip from a holiday drink. They’re good
Christians, our families. They practice piety
as sanctimony: kick us out, turn us away,
believe us miserable and drunk, all hedonists,
orgiastic and diseased, sinners beyond
saving. We’re their bad kids:
different drummers, black sheep,
queers fairies faggots bulldykes fruitcakes fruits— 

fruits who form a family and set
a table of our own. We make a gift
of our presence, exchange
gratitude for love. And for free
we play this game. The fruit I pick,
because it sounds risqué: kumquat.

MARISA P. CLARK

Marisa P. Clark is a queer Southerner whose writing appears/will appear in Shenandoah, Cream City Review, Nimrod, Epiphany, Foglifter, Potomac Review, Rust + Moth, Louisiana Literature, and elsewhere. Best American Essays 2011 recognized her nonfiction among its Notable Essays. She lives in New Mexico with three parrots and two dogs.