Orange in the middle of a table:
It isn’t enough
To walk around it
At a distance, saying
It’s an orange:
Nothing to do
With us, nothing
Else: leave it alone

I want to pick it up
In my hand
I want to peel the
Skin off; I want
More to be said to me
Than just Orange:
Want to be told
Everything it has to say
And you, sitting across
The table, at a distance, with
Your smile contained, and like the orange
In the sun: silent:

Your silence
Isn’t enough for me
Now, no matter with what
Contentment you fold
Your hands together; I want
Anything you can say
In the sunlight:
Stories of your various
Childhoods, aimless journeyings
Your loves; your articulate
Skeleton; your posturings; your lies
These orange silences
(sunlight and hidden smile)
Make me want to
Wrench you into saying;
Now I’d crack your skull
Like a walnut, split it like a pumpkin
To make you talk, or get
A look inside

But quietly:
If I take the orange
With care enough and hold it
Gently

I may find
An egg
A sun
An orange moon
Perhaps a skull; center
Of all energy
Resting in my hand

Can change it to
Whatever I desire
It to be
And you, man, orange afternoon
Lover, wherever
You sit across from me
(tables, trains, buses)

If I watch
Quietly enough
And long enough

At last, you will say
(maybe without speaking)

(there are mountains
Inside your skull
Garden and chaos, ocean
And hurricane; certain
Corners of rooms, portraits
Of great grandmothers, curtains
Of a particular shade;
Your deserts; your private
Dinosaurs; the first
Woman)

All I need to know
Tell me
Everything
Just as it was
From the beginning