Navel oranges are in the market now.
I choose two, gulp at a dollar a piece.
I put a whole one into Moroccan soup.
The other, I zest into bowls of rice pudding,
into rhubarb sauce – first of the season. Then

I cut it in half – it’s big as a grapefruit – juice
it on an old hand juicer. Lift the hollowed
halves to my lips, suck the bits of flesh.
Juice gathers on my chin, my cheeks,
my nose is covered with orange.

I go to the kitchen window, pull down
the blind. How could I let passersby –
the night – see such intimate gluttony?


© by Judith Heron.
Used with the author’s permission.