Today’s photograph is of a painting by Gloria Jeffries, used with permission from the artist. It made me think about the goodness of fruit. It’s simple food, often used as a winter treat, and so has cosy connotations. 
Oranges
There were never oranges
like the one you peeled for me
that first night, paring the rind,
removing with a surgeon’s skill
every trace of white.
Zest filled the air.
You watched me sink my teeth in,
laughed as I posted a segment
into your mouth. Afterwards
you lit one of your father’s cigarettes.
I closed my eyes and breathed in
smoke, the scent of oranges, you.
Carole Bromley
Poem with a Satsuma in it
There is no sunset can rival
the particular shade of its skin
no sunrise the pimpled texture
no noon-glow the zing.
There can never be too many
satsumas in poems,
each segment a stanza,
every metaphor a pip.
I open a book of them
and my mouth waters
even before I’ve tasted
the opening line.
My grand-daughter
can’t say the word,
just points
more, more, more
Carole Bromley
first published in The Stonegate Devil (Smith/Doorstop)
Pomegranate
For Jan Dean
Five pointed star, my pentacle,
how I would lift your jewels
from their case, one by one
on the pin’s point, before
I found a better way.
Now I bite into your leather
with greedy teeth, devouring
your firmaments, your rubies.
Time’s a thief and so am I,
seizing everything I can.
Time enough for picking out
your treasures one by one
when days begin to bleed
one into another like washed
watercolour sunsets.
Even Persephone could not resist
your glowing fairy-lights.
I garner your seeds for my journey,
draw on clean parchment
my pentacle five pointed star.
Angela Topping
First published in Paper Patterns (Lapwing 2012)
