What Is Love If Not Rot?
by Jane Wong
online at the Seattle Public Library Seattle Writes web site
I’ve been watching videos of rotting oranges on time-lapse again – it’s barely noticeable at first – the pores begin to grow, craters of no importance – after 14 days, the skin thins out, rice paper thin, wind thin, loneliness thin – at 15 days, spots bloom like a newborn galaxy or a bald buzzard – circling, a shadow returning winter’s wail – the skin puckers in on itself, all chimney ash, all brain-matter mold – the middle like touching a young organ – slobbering milk and mud – a pedestal of goldenrod flora at 17 days – at 20 days, moss lumbers up and through – continents growing along this orb – thickening at 22 days like cotton lint from the dryer, like fur, a sheepskin cloud, like my mother – an animal in her own right, expanding – now, the color phlegm yellow, poor yellow – growing smaller and smaller by 25 days – collapsing upon itself like curled fists – how I sleep at night, returning to heartbreak after heartbreak – fruit flies fluttering about like snow – what is holding it up still, what is keeping it here, how can I bear – to watch it – how can I – liquefy by 45 days, wolfish in citrus murk – ever-shrinking like every grandparent I’ve ever held hands with – at 85 days, how to hold this slush of glittering bees – trapped in no worldly amber –
