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Amelia's Orange Grove

Juan doesn't dare ask, but knows Amelia has others-

in dark cities, in the dust of autumn, pictures her

winding down dwindling alleys where windows

slam shut at noon; sometimes he smells them

emerging from Amelia's pores at night

when she sleeps and he turns watching streetlight

flickering forgiving forgetting; and

when she's three hours late his heart thumps

like a man jumping from a train, Juan knows-

and it's a knowing like the smell of iron in the air

before rain-and he knows she's tasted that greased-back

ape with the silver tooth, with the diamond ring

and that seaman's tattoo, he who wanders

winking lazy-eyed Friday nights; Juan thinks

he'll be jealous, bubble and sear,

think he'll tear himself right down,

separate ego from alter ego,

but strangely he looks out at constellations

trying to remember Sagittarius from Capricorn, searching

for the virgin and sky's dangling umbilical cord;

and Amelia prodding her rice and beans and

garlic rabbit, forking skins right to the edge,

slurping wine on water on wine, telling Juan

her mother has mortgaged them a house

downpaid with the last of Xavier's will, in the Navarra

and a stream wriggling eels, an orange grove

and a future mother should really be drinking milk

building up the calcium in her hip bones

and wouldn't it be wonderful when they were finally alone

without aunts and uncles and cousins

without nephews and nitpicking mothers

who prod their noses in their affairs,

and Juan peels back his orange layer by layer

and swallows skin, flesh, pips, swallows everything.


Marc Vincenz was born in Hong Kong during the height of the Cultural Revolution. His recent poetry books include Upholding Half the Sky (Casa Menedez, 2010), The Propaganda Factory, or Speaking of Trees(Argotist, 2011). A collection of translations is forthcoming from Cervena Barva Press.
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