By Lila Dubois
We went and
picked oranges
in front of my house
I stood on the ladder and
you waited below with
arms up
hands open like
the Buddha
so every time I turned
down
you were there
smiling a citrus green
God
oh God
I was happy
So happy
it made my
head hurt
and my heart fizz
I suddenly
had to go
lie down
I just
needed a
second
God
I was happy
I stumbled down
to the
sidewalk
dropped to my
knees
fell onto my
palms
where it
hurt for a second
sting of
fresh skin
hitting concrete
a little
too hard
but just a second and then
it was okay
because
the infinite bliss
of sun
on a sidewalk
melts
all
of everything: fizzing and
stinging and skin
glows warm into my
thighs
seeps through cotton
tank top
and up into my stomach
beams against my left
cheek
smushed
into the cracks
oh god
I was happy
in the way of
sun pulsing in sidewalks
or
purple and green and
sometimes red
reverberating in an
Alaskan sky
As I
nestled into the pavement
and as
the leaves
flapped against each other
waxy and pungent
you popped stems
broke the peels open with
just
your fingers
and sucked the juice
before it ran
down
your arm
and you laughed
with me
a citrus green
my eyes fluttered to a
close
there drowsily on the
sidewalk
I’d planned
on resting
only a second,
just
closing my eyes
But
then
of course
when I opened them
it had been longer
than a second
longer
than an hour
or three hours really
I’m not sure
(you know
how these things go)
the backs of my legs were
sunburnt and
you were
not there
and the heat
had made the oranges
go rancid on the blacktop
I sighed
and rolled over
it seemed like the thing to
do
and
looking
into the sun
until I saw those
blackish mold spots,
I thought to myself,
Fuck
The Woodlands 