nude abed with oranges

aubrey ryan

Some morning in the clean, pale house
we woke to find oranges still in the bag
by the bed. I sat cross-legged in sheets
and liked the rind against my breast; I smiled
for your shutter. We were together
seven years and when I left I felt I’d heaved
a whole ocean overboard. My breasts
are mine—they fit my hands and I
peel oranges in one long swoop. Let all
that water raise the bed and float me out
into the streets, fruit bobbing behind
like ducklings and the rest a roil
of undertow: you and your lens, grey city,
broken bike spokes and our sheets—
pale and heavy like any drowned thing.

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