Citrus Smile
Blood orange
pulp filigrees
my teeth, drying
kelp unfurling
onto shores. Crisp
peel ruts against
my gums, spraying
a stinging mist
of citrus.
Blood orange
pulp filigrees
my teeth, drying
kelp unfurling
onto shores. Crisp
peel ruts against
my gums, spraying
a stinging mist
of citrus.
I beg them to let my mother at its controls, let the one who gave life take it away.
I ponder the meaning of my destruction, and think that I am a piece of fate.
A set black mark on humanity, birthed from a saint.
I hear them being lulled to sleep, as injections take place.
The scariness is that it’s so peaceful, this casting out of evil.
I beg of you, to look upon me in my demise, look upon the seat of evil.
See my fingerprint on humanities soul.
Learn to pry loose those fingers, and to be free from the gaze of one who sits in the shadow of the machine.
I want to say
that my hands
have grown tough,
heat resistant,
willing to burn
from repeated
exposure.
But I can’t.
I flinch at hot bowls
and boiling water.
I protect my fingers
and cherish my palms.
They are still
soft.
Out on the water in early morning
Sun piercing through the clouds
With its gold and orange rays
While the mist lifts off the water
Like praise without thinking of it that way
Without believing it is surrendering
Or giving up something that belongs to it
A release that makes room for more
A surrender into freedom
in a cage, or what at least resembles one.
These blinds being made
from the thickest steel,
the chains ruthlessly nailed
to the splitting wood
upon the door, just a mere
blanket and couch
to keep us company.
Scratches mark the wall where we tried
to claw our way out.
Wood chips and leftover mail
pile their weight above my head
asserting their pressure and force
down my spine—
I crumble.
This is no home for me.
Now morning is cool as I shelter
on the porch under my blanket
watching, writing.
Din of distant traffic,
a single leaf drops down
spiraling, unheralded, quiet;
now my daughter texts saying
they’re in a nearby town being tested
for Covid standing on an X
like in a bad movie she says–
sirens wail. I hope not
a preview of my life.
Now I’m noticing a scratch
on my finger with no memory
where it came from, a thin
white scar in the making.
A squirrel panics,
on alert as a hawk
lands on a high branch–
more sirens scream,
then fade away
now just a flicker, the shadow
of movement on a limb
high above.
At first a niggling buzz, wings
flicking through mountain air,
one, then another, and then
they are everywhere, you can’t
unsee them, can’t quiet the
steady roar
like the words you overheard,
those tiny arrows that lodged
lightly on your skin, burrowed
subtly deeper, deeper still until
they became the persistent bang
of your heart
