oranges.

Thinking about poems about peeling clementines for people,
and how Clementia is the name of the Roman goddess of forgiveness. Love as an act of offering; this act that says:
“Forgive me, I love you.”

I wish I could tell them how I felt.
But there were no oranges around to peel for them.
How else would they believe me,
when I say, “I love you.” Is love, not action?
Guess I’ll go to the market tomorrow.

“She peels an orange, separates it in perfect halves,
and gives one of them to me.
If I could wear it like a friendship bracelet, I would.
Instead, I swallow it, section by section,
and tell myself it means even more this way.
To chew and to swallow in silence with her.
To taste the same thing in the same moment.”
— Nina Lacour, from We Are Okay

“I could not ask you where you came from. I could not ask you, neither could you.”

I told you how I love oranges.
Not for the flavour, but because they make good muses.
The pulp is kind of yucky,
but the way it is built to share, and to share is to love.
I told you how I love poems with oranges,
and when the time comes,
And I wouldn’t eat. And I couldn’t eat.
And you peeled an orange, and you gave me the half.
How dare you love me in the way I long to be loved.

‘Still Life with Oranges’ by Robert Spear Dunning

I peel oranges neatly.
The sections come apart cleanly, perfectly, in my hands.
When she peels an orange, she tears holes in it.
Juice squirts in all directions.
“How?!” She screeches, “I don’t know how you do it!”
She is my best friend.
I hope she never learns how to peel oranges.