Blood Oranges


In 1936, a child
In Hitler’s Germany,
What did I know about the war in Spain?
Andalusia was a tango
On a wind-up gramophone,
Franco a hero’s face in the paper.
No one told me about a poet
For whose sake I might have learned Spanish
Bleeding to death on a barren hill.
All I knew of Spain
Were those precious imported treats
We splurged on for Christmas.
I remember pulling the sections apart,
Lining them up, sucking each one
Slowly, so the red sweetness
Would last and last
While I was reading a poem
By a long-dead German poet
In which the woods stood safe
Under the moon’s milky eye
And the white fog in the meadows
Aspired to become lighter than air.


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Blood Oranges