how to peel an orange with one hand

Media: Found Objects Wall Sculpture
Dimensions: 24" long
Date of Work: 04/04

something about the smell
of an old root cellar
on an early August afternoon-
six cinder block steps down
the coaxed decent into the dark
the silent latching of the door behind
the well packed damp dirt floor
under a young boy’s two bare feet.

upon the clapboard mantles
round the mud brick walls
rows of hand filled jars
return the lantern’s glow
pickled hearts and jellied hues
of last years autumn harvest
here beneath the scent of sweet
black earth, the stink
of something rotten in the dark
a lid that’s come unsealed somehow
behind the dusty glass congealed-
the blanched polluted root
-the ring of flies that swarm the open mouth!

this is how you peel an orange with one hand.

said the older man-
first you hold it in your hand
gripping firm the shell like so..
hard against the dimple then
the brutish thumb drills down and in
boring through the bruised and supple skin,
midway down, just passed the hinge
the eager digit squirms-
writhing like the old blind worm
that feeds it’s fill on unripe fruit.
all the while, atop the palm,
the orange slowly turns
four fingers fashioned into claws
that hungry maul the hole
that seeps the sticky sweet
that gush like tears down arm and elbow.
naked , sans the shelter of it’s summer cloths,
the flesh begins to yield
the pliant peel pared back reveals..
the pith exposed, laid bare-
-the ruptured pulp and marrow.
now the stubble covered trembling lips-
the darting tongue and then the bite.
the open maw that eager laps the sap
that drips from the cleft of the flesh
of the fruit pulled apart
by one hand!

Then when all is done
and every bit has been devoured whole
the rising from the depths
up the cinder block six steps
one foot before the other
into blinding daylight once again
to leave behind forgot,
amid the spatter of spent sweet,
a ribbon of soft rind to rot
upon the well packed damp dirt floor.

(Poetry by Dane O'Hara)