Travelers Welcome

Travelers Welcome

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Eating an Orange

by Jessica Otto

I pick up the orange of the kitchen counter
and cut into it with a haphazard, serrated blade
crusted with peanut butter sleeping in the sink
next to a greasy tilapia spine that found
its final resting place in my coffee mug.

Inside the orange is something like the pulse that
floats beneath your heart murmur.  The juice
stings a paper cut when I try to dig out a seed that
is not the pearl I was expecting from this thing that
is not an oyster.  And eat it anyway.

2 comments:

  1. "haphazard, serrated blade crusted with peanut butter sleeping in the sink" - love it, reminds me of student days in our second year digs when such thing as washing up were just somebody else problem. Great image.

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  2. Been pondering this poem all week and it's still just as strong as the first read. Wonderful.

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