Orange Groves

The last time I was here it was spring. It had rained all April, but now it was May and the flowers tickled my thighs. The branches were sunken on nearly every tree, hanging in rows and bowing to the beauty presented to them. The sun bled through the cloudy sky until the overcast had melted with the day. Cars stop passing the groves at about four; we arrived at five. As the sun set, the sky took on an orange hue that was accentuated until the horizon caught fire; birds scattered and we were alone.

Whenever I eat an orange, I don’t bother removing the zest. The peel makes a sound when punctured and lets out this burst of citrus I haven’t known since that spring. But that evening I made a mark with my fingernail and pulled back the covering and saw something I’d never seen before. I removed the remainder of the rind, put it on the ground, and opened and explored every part of that orange. We were there until morning. The birds returned, as they always do, and day returned, as it always does, and summer followed spring, as it always does.

At the beginning of day, the peepers whined and dew formed beneath me, my back and front wet with what felt like the oranges of the last few years. The rotten ones fall to the ground and end up in the ground, and I think of how funny that is as I collapse to the ground on this winter day. And I have to remind myself, even now, that the drenched feeling of rain is only natural.

In the groves, the oranges have the taste of ground, not entirely ripe yet, but are more vibrant than they’ll ever be. The color broke and flavor gushed into my mouth and awakened my throat, gone tired with time. With every breath there was a renewal, every gasp, more fresh air. And with the fresh air I felt a false sense of freedom, the climbing and falling, and not much in between. So I grabbed at whatever I could, and I just happened to find someone. The way that someone touched my chest and the way I ran my fingers through their hair and the way we enveloped each other until we were forced to breathe the other’s breath was the most real thing I felt all night. When the sun had left the sky, I expected the taste to stay on my pallet for the rest of time. But, of course, the progression of the seasons rinsed and rinsed and rinsed the corners of my mouth and my tongue couldn’t even keep that secret.

In the groves, of course, the ground smells of oranges. The grappling and the beauty and the heat and the breathing revolve around the smell of the ground and the taste on a lover’s skin, the citrus lips and sweet perspiration. And the fact that I tasted that still makes me tremble. And when we rose in the morning, in the groves, we left, as we always do.

Yet here I stand; now I return. The ground is entirely fruit at this point, frozen and rotten. I close my eyes and I can still see the hazy sky. I try to force the evening, the spring, out of my mind. But when I open my eyes I can’t help but see the trees and hear the sounds of that night.

When I fall down, the ground doesn’t smell sweet and my sweat is bitter on my lips. No flowers to tickle my thighs and no sun to set the sky aflame. No rind to protect no orange and no one to hold no one. No birds to leave us alone and no us to be alone. The last time I was here I wanted to be.

Maybe I shouldn’t have thrown the rind away to get at that orange.