Poetry prompt: I don’t know jack

This weekend I went to my chain supermarket (Jewel) and spent a good deal of time in the produce department staring at something.

I didn’t know what it was but I got out my phone to take pictures. It was the size of a watermelon and its rind was fantastic. My mind flashed to that handsome actor Kevin McCarthy in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, that wonderful and campy 1956 movie about pod people.

I tracked down the produce guy and asked what this crazy thing was. It’s jackfruit he said. Then he steered me to the section where packages of cut-up produce are sold. He said the pith is similar to that of a pomegranate and that you eat the yellow flesh and discard the seeds.

A little research led me to this article, “Here’s the Scoop on Jackfruit”  on NPR last year (Where have I been?).  I am disappointed in myself that I did not buy any to try, especially since I found out it might taste like Juicyfruit gum.

I figured these pics might be a good for sparking a poem.

Here’s one idea: If you could design a fruit or vegetable, what would it look like? Taste like? How would it be grown, eaten, harvested.  Where would it grow? Who would eat it?

Or, If you created the Genesis story, what fruit would you make forbidden?

Or, If these pods were not jackfruit, but something else, what could that be?

Maybe I’ll  follow my first instinct and write a poem about aliens among us.

Hope you can find inspiration and spend some time at the keyboard.

Peace, love, and solace