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.
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.
