When one wakes in the night
despite sleeping pills, white
noise machines, orthopedic
pillows, and thinks of oranges
— such sweetness — there it is,
that orange, floating brilliantly
in this dim room — and all
the things one must make sense
of — Nehru jackets, bouffant
hairdos, threatening french
nails — your attachment to top-
less bars, those artificial orbs,
that tooty fruity booze — all
this demanding explication
in the swoony night with its
train whistles and sock-it-to-me
buzz, love, American style, the ed-
ification of this planet’s turn to
darkness, the rebellious suicide
of the sun, the sweetness of
oranges — where is Lawrence
of Arabia when you need him
to peel this open, to hand you,
one-by-one, these white-veined
crescents, dripping with light?
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