Tangerine

It was a flower once, it was one of a billion flowers
whose perfume broke through closed car windows,
forced a blessing on their drivers.
Then what stayed behind grew swollen, as we do;
grew juice instead of tears, and small hard sour seeds,
each one bitter, as we are, and filled with possibility.
Now a hole opens up in its skin, where it was torn from the
branch; ripeness can't stop itself, breathes out;
you can't stop it either, you breathe in:
such loss transmuted into fruit; grown edible, grown sweet.

Copyright © 2003 Ruth L. Schwartz All rights reserved
from Crab Orchard Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission