Unheeded Left As a Child I Could Not Eat Oranges

FEEL AS A CHILD I COULD NOT EAT ORANGES

POETRY

Gabrielle Soria Oakland, Calif. Advertising major

I would walk past them at the market, oranges the size of baseballs, cloistered navels like scrunched mouths, babied and unsatisfied.

Something about them repulsed me – the thought of my fingers running over their pocked skins, dusted with the spray of water every three and six minutes – sitting, moist and anxious, waiting for the cool slanted hands, the open palms to cup and cradle, to carry home – I couldn’t touch them, let alone bring them to my lips.

But when, on the playground, one escaped from its paper bag prison, to roll out onto the table, I sank my fingertips into that secret place and pried open the peel, scraping and scraping with probing thumbs, until at last the thing sat, rocking on the rough boards as if in trauma – naked, exposed, and alive.