Oranges and Gefilte Fish

I.

My first experience with love,
a real, tangible and requited
love began with oranges.

The day I first visited with you,
it was your forgotten birthday.
I was a friend of your brother.

You, alone, were home.
You were 17.
You invited me to wait.

You had been reading;
so naturally, we took up about books and poetry.
Your brother did not read.
He paid no attention to books or me,
only passing enough time to fuck me on a bad occasion.

I proudly claimed, “I write poetry.”
I was 18.
You challenged me to write a poem with orange in it.
A week later, I gave you “Orange.”
A poem of violence, predators and Kubrick.
You and I had begun our love affair.
It was ripe with the sweet acid of oranges.


II.

Now, after 15 years, packaged with
two engagements, one marriage, a child, one divorce, and a few minor incidents
I waltz through a cluttered labyrinth of rooms with you, my lover.

You who sings in a sun-filtered, smoke filled room of glass.
You who burned a gift of “tea and oranges.”
You, collector of pots and pans, of dwindling aged bottles of scotch, of towers built from books.

I browse.
I investigate.
The slow-burn of oranges is fragrant in this place,
and in this space there is something I want to eat.

Empty, a can of gefilte fish, beckons forth.
Its oily insides tempt me.
I wonder what gefilte fish tastes like.
Does it taste like love?