Bitter Oranges
The tree was a mirror
and in it you saw only a door.
So with cats mewing at my feet, I picked three bitter oranges.
When I bit into them they tasted of dust.
I may have been inhaling a spirit-spore or two
to drag out the golden subconscious in a wheelbarrow.
But my ideas were thwarted and mute.
Fat with raccoon arms flailing dumbly on the forest floor.
My ideas had babies and they lay mewling around me
rolling their tongues and flashing their teeth.
Calling me mama.
Calling me papa.
I had forgotten what it had been like to sleep with a wolf
to lie motionless as he eats all the sugar cookies I made
and mutter, “you’re next”
dragging a claw across my thigh.
I had forgotten it until the numb juice ran down my throat
and I felt the mirror break
and the door swing off it’s hinges
and the terrible crash of the lover rolling over.
Curiosity wouldn’t have killed me
but it will possess you like a gambler
addicted more to light than anything else.
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