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9 Still Life Flowering It was the moment my boss thumped a large watermelon onto the white Formica counter, as if green had arrived—its skin, a dark forest with Monet dabs of light hinting at what’s inside. I saw the knife plunge into the center. Unable to penetrate the whole of it, he used his surgeon hands to crack the rest apart, the sound of it like the earth splitting. And then it all went very different for a girl taught to respect boundaries, the way this fruit was contained within its thick rind. He didn’t slice it—he gouged the heart out, eating it with a hunger I had never seen—the juice shored between his lips. Carving the next bite, it seemed to flower from his fingertips. I stood there, white uniform, white nurse’s shoes, eyeing him and the red blossom he laid into my mouth, the sweet fruit and all those slippery black seeds. ...

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