How to Eat a Persimmon

You start at the tip of the fruit
at the bottom
on the other side from the hard, green stem with green petals.
Your persimmon is deep orange, and heart shaped
and plump and soft and delicate.
The point at the tip stands out.

You open the tip by nipping on it
taking little bites,
biting off more and again and again
until the soft, sweet, succulent
insides
come out onto your tongue
in a wash of flavor
from the thick, soft, swirling sensation of the pulp.

Then you know what you do:
You start to suck.
You suck the soft, sweet, succulent
insides
into your mouth
pushing deeper into the fruit
with each bite-and-suck,
working your way around in circles
as you press toward the hard stem at the far end.

Eventually, you've eaten most all of the soft pulp,
but there's still some skin left, skin with soft pulp on it
and you have no recourse
but to put the skin into your mouth
between your lips,
hold it in place with your tongue,
and bite and suck and pull on the skin
to get all the soft, sweet, succulent  pulp
onto your tongue,
and then you bite off the skin,
bit by bit
in a circle around the edge,
and chew it with your front teeth,
and swallow it
until it's all gone
and nothing is left but the stem.

That's how to eat a persimmon.