Of Orange and Desire
by Jonathon | 2.06.13
Â
At the doorstep
of winter
desire boils
like magma:
Â
an orange
stands erect—
ripe and sexy
in a twilit dress
Â
on a trembling
bough.
Â
______________________
Ali Znaidi (b.1977) lives in Redeyef, Tunisia where he teaches English at Tunisian public secondary schools. His work has appeared in Otoliths, The Tower Journal, streetcake, Ink Sweat and Tears, Mad Swirl, Unlikely Stories: Episode IV, Red Fez, Carcinogenic Poetry, Stride Magazine, and other ezines. His debut poetry chapbook Experimental Ruminations was published in September 2012 by Fowlpox Press (Canada). He also writes flash fiction for the Six Sentence Social Network.
Painting by Émile Vernon, “Starlight,” date unknown.
February 6th, 2013 at 10:46 am
Well, the picture definitely goes with the poem.
February 6th, 2013 at 12:34 pm
You can’t get more orange than that.
I didn’t associate oranges with winter until I moved to the desert not too far from the orange groves in Arizona. Every December, a trading post proprietor trucks in 20 pound bags of freshly picked oranges to his trading post and sells them the weekend before Christmas. The old guy had a ritual he used to perform. When you walked in, he greeted you enthusiastically and insisted on giving you a sample of his fruity wares. Slowly, precisely, he peeled an orange then raised a slice to your mouth. The first time he fed me a fresh orange slice, it struck as a revelation. I’d never tasted an orange so stunningly, wildly flavorful. I’d closed my eyes when I first bit down on the orange section, but when I opened them, I do believe there was a light shining in them. The old man had been watching my face and smiled knowingly.
February 12th, 2013 at 6:15 pm
I no longer feel embarrassed about my love poem :)
… orange is my favorite color.
February 12th, 2013 at 6:15 pm
That paragraph you wrote, Patricia, belongs in a poem.