Michael Dechane: “Three Times She Peels a Grapefruit”
THREE TIMES SHE PEELS A GRAPEFRUIT
The dimpled peel comes off in patches.
There is no sound like this sound, being torn.
My lover’s hands can pull apart a sun.
She turns the pith down like a sheet.
How quietly it surrenders covering.
She feels no hurry for this undressing.
A red moon peers through its ruined envelope.
We hear a chrysalis-shucking whisper.
I trace this arc of longing as she holds the edge.
Only one lithe wall remains between us
and the taste. She leaves barely enough
to hold what may never be held again.
With unselfconscious grace
she makes these shambles and plunders
the bitter fraction. She keeps giving
all of her eyes’ attention to her book beside me
in our bed. I watch her hand find my mouth
to offer the glad collapse of a hundred fullnesses.
Michael Dechane received his MFA in poetry from Seattle Pacific University. A native of Odessa, Florida, he currently resides in Zürich, Switzerland. His poetry has most recently appeared or is forthcoming in Image, Southern Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, Atlanta Review, Ekstasis, Ruminate, and Apalachee Review.