The Orange

One of the few remaining poems of mine that I don't currently hate is this sonnet, one of quite a few sonnets I have written, and like the ee cummings lines quoted earlier it is loaded with sensual metaphors. I don't remember if I was thinking dirty thoughts when I wrote this, but one could read it with certain collaborative activities in mind.

You palm the leathern ball with critic love
And find it ripe. Now with your scapel thumb
Unseal the flesh: the blazing juices jump
In brute reflex, and stab the nose above.
Undress by patches hide and chalky fat;
Press ope the meaty heart, peel off the spine.
Crush loose, drip out each segment’s tiny rind;
Tongue-grasp each nectar sac and gulp it flat.
Or let a ruptured segment spill its gold
Sweet musk across your hand; its beads
Will bristle, full, as round them bleeds
A pungent oil whose drying makes you old.
The prey consumed and conquered? So you think
Till, sniffing at the skin, you teary blink.