I

You never know how a fruit is

until you pick it up. Only then

will you find all the bruises and bumps

that it never really talks about.

Look, for example, at this blood orange,

a glistening gold, a prideful sheen;

now turn it over–

it’s been torn through from the bottom,

some pulp gouged out from inside

and splayed on the crevice where it used to be.

II

Most of it has already rotten away,

but a hand, out of nowhere, comes again

to squeeze the last that it can give;

it oozes out in tear-shaped beads

and pools in a thick circle:

this ink, this palette,

this violently won ruby red.