Scent

I pick one up and score

each pole circling — but not too deep

I draw crescent moons

cutting superficially, merely grazing the orange with my blade

Tough skin

From slight incisions

dimples turn fragrant

at a moment’s notice or when the time is right

Peel it, taste

moist orange orange

lips and tongue, saliva and sweet juicy flesh all one

my green scent for love

Unless

postponement takes a knife to desire

unless I’d rather not

because I pretend I’ve forgotten how

Crunching the fruit, a crunchy orange

imperfect joy

grainy beneath

white round

and time round

battered into shards

piercing for universal reminders

all wide long

curving

moving mounts farther out still  

evening hadn’t yet approached nor had this been

a perfect day, although there was joy in it still

the woman with cigarettes and coral lips

the young man sitting by the entrance, his tousled hair

a girl with the skin, she thought, of a giraffe

none of us happy although joy to the day still

I placed my hands beneath his arms and we walked

clear translucent
warm, always brackish in these parts

and rows of grapevines heavy with fruit:

there’s no joy taking things for granted.

for a while I could find the indentation of my footsteps

then my toes started kicking up dust

startlingly beautiful, a perfect disk approaching the horizon

swimming back to a metre and a half standing

but sometimes the sea tried to bring me to my knees

The sea can be funny that way. Thalassa, I like her.

as I was saying, some things are heartbreakingly beautiful

the night breeze arrived, it knocked the salt off my gums,

that kind of breeze.

I’ll wait as long as it takes

waiting slowly —  slowly obscured the brilliant orange

the solitary dot near the cloud-empty horizon

but wondrous our earth
apart at red green spectrum 

but luminous, and myself alight

sliding below the line of the horizon

to a sunrise

my lost love, my love 

Circles

At the café, they set tables on a narrow stretch

A wedge of shorn grass giving way to rock, to sand, to shore

Staged by an unseen hand to entertain the wanton inclinations of fate

A tale unfolds: chance in the fading twilight 

The woman approaches in silence  

In silence resting

Her cheek against the back of his neck —

Done quickly lest time run out,

Lest he say no, her arms

Encircle

It’s needless, he thinks, and after all this time too much of a liberty

He pries them apart with easy execution 

Half annoyed half curious he stands to bow in greeting

When he spied her at that table with her chatty friends what did it matter?

The hour was late and the ache buried.

Unobserved

He focused west into the riot of purple-saffron hues.

You’ve grown a moustache she says

I’m thinking of shaving it off he replies

Her voice is mellowed by resin-wine

And sea mist has settled on her lips. 

He remembers the taste of her lips 

They stroll at the edge 

Where broken waves drift ashore

Pebbles and shells crunch 

Quelling stretches of silence

In this diffused light of their twilight 

Let’s climb there, the woman decides

Where will it take us that path?

Below, the deep is wine-dark 

Its belly resembles the wine-dark within us all

“Don’t let go.”

“I won’t.”

Choppy water travelling in circles