Rebecca Baggett
After
1.
She peels the orange,
rubs its white pith
against the blue veins of her wrist,
pulls the yielding fruit
apart, section by section,
presses each one between her tongue
and the arch of her mouth,
closes her eyes as the juice
lights her throat.
2.
Winter is leaving early.
From her window she stares
at the feathering of green
on the dark branches,
the orange and gold shimmer
of tulips and daffodils rising from dry leaves.
3.
She lifts her wrist
to inhale the fragrance of citrus,
sharp as hope,
eyes closed
so she will not see
the thin lines,
almost healed,
so she will not consider
how the juice stings.
Rebecca Baggett is the author of the prize-winning collection, The Woman Who Lives Without Money (Regal House Publishing, 2022) and four chapbooks, including God Puts on the Body of a Deer (Main Street Rag) and Thalassa (Finishing Line Press). Her work has appeared in journals including The Southern Review, The Sun, New England Review, and North American Review and in numerous anthologies. A native of North Carolina, she has lived for most of her adult life in Athens, GA, where she worked as a lead academic advisor for the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences at UGA. In retirement, she stewards Little Free Library #110420 and is a member of the Three Rivers Poets group. She enjoys indie bookshops, libraries, solarpunk fiction, theatre, native gardening/habitat restoration, watching the younger generation take over the world, and her three-year-old grandson.
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