Tangerine
It was a flower once, it was one of a billion flowers
whose perfume broke through closed car windows,
forced a blessing on their drivers.
Then what stayed behind grew swollen, as we do;
grew juice instead of tears, and small hard sour seeds,
each one bitter, as we are, and filled with possibility.
Now a hole opens up in its skin, where it was torn from the
branch; ripeness can’t stop itself, breathes out;
we can’t stop it either. We breathe in.
Copyright Credit: From Dear Good Naked Morning, © 2005 by Ruth L. Schwartz. Reprinted by permission of the author and Autumn House Press. First printed in Crab Orchard Review, Vol. 8, No. 2.
Source: Dear Good Naked Morning (Autumn House Press, 2005)