Five Poems of Home

Love is an orange
twisted off the highest
branch of the backyard tree
by a tall boy balanced
on the roof of the barren doghouse
on our last foggy morning

* * *

he left the low fruit hanging, so my mama
could reach them dangling and dancing in the fog.
Her bad back is alone right now, aching. She is sipping
weak coffee at the leaf-less table, playing sudoku

as she swallows a slice of the juiciest orange imaginable.


* * *


Unpalatable oranges are sold in Spokane. they must be bought
by people who have never tasted truth.
our Oranges spray sacred oil, dress our palms
as their unshriveled sweet flesh is broken
for you to imbibe with joy and thanks.

These shrunken oranges are not to blame.

I would be sour, too, after bouncing a thousand miles in a crowded box,
to emerge into florescent lights of safeway, no fog to call my own.

* * *

(dreaming of home, salivating over fresh fruit
What are endless rows of orange trees in a foggy orchard
when a sunny false spring has arrived in Spokane?)

* * *

we filled brown paper bags with love, to sustain us on our journey,
or bequeath on future hosts. Speeding through orchards on 99,
the perfume of his quiet peeling saturated the air. The orange exhaled
oils with each peel, anointing his hands with travelling mercies.
I was driving north, away from home; eating one segment
of sweetness after another. and I don't remember when the fog cleared.