The Girl and Her Orange Tree
Oranges hang from my hair and they 
feed me full—these fruits all alive and
ripened through. All young things sweet in their
sticky shine, their wet desire. I am plump enough to 
birth something good with a rind circumference of 
cream spit and tears. Fingers leaking warm want, 
lips sickly sweet, myself bloated with the 
brandings of hot rotten flesh. I starve myself pretty to 
allow a miracle: mouth soured halves, 
suck at juices licking off hair ends. Tear at
rusted globes till they fray, lap up their
hardened dried remains. 
I think of a day I can stand a fruitless whole. To bear 
branches that feed none; buried seed deep in my throat 
thrumming a dead beat as I long myself to be 
hollowed clean, to be right.