–Mint Vinetu Bookstore, Vilnius
So, Jonas said, you should write a poemabout eating an orange at the counter.It’s a tangerine, I thought,but didn’t tell him. Does that matter?
Does it matter where the word goes?Orange. Tangerine. In your mind.I think of Frank O’Hara’s oranges,about how terrible they are, andlife. I think of Led Zeppelinand Page’s nostalgic guitar. What else?
The segments were sweet and tender,cold from my backpack’s outer pouch.(Winter in Vilnius is like a grave.)It had rested there for frigid days:I’m sorry if you were saving it,William C. It’s mine now for the minuteit lasts, three minutes, an eternity, oruntil this frame decays –
children scream like sirens as I write,unburdened. My wife calls me downto dinner. There’s an edgeto her voice. No one is listeningand I am to blame, poetry,this distance from home –
an idea in the mind, the smellof freshly cut grass, the mowergrumbling: a hungry beastvibrating against my thigh,spewing ghastly fumesfrom the land of Ulro that writhelike souls in Dis, never to return,like this orange, that love, although,it was always just a tangerine.
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