orange

This year, I’m writing poetry for every word tasting in November. I’m calling it Povember. Today, sapphic verse.

orange lemon tangerine grapefruit citron
Meyer lemon bergamot bitter orange
amanatsu Buddha’s hand kumquat etrog
clementine yuzu

sweetie I’m a citrus fruit taste me peel me
bitter on the outside but dripping sugar
make me juice and marmalade squeeze me drink me
spread me and eat me

what good is an orange the poets ask me
cliché and conventional never rhyming
shrugging shoulders off they go ballpoints dried up
leaving me lying

then you come and pick me up with your fingers
then you come and peel me with fingernails and
then you come and pull me apart and suck me
wordlessly smiling