Image courtesy of The Public Domain Archive
Lenny Eats A Tangelo
Juice squirts out,
startles my left eye.
It's worth it. Sweet,I roll some on my tongue
before I swallow. The pulp
has even more juice soI press it on the roof
of my mouth. Pleasure.
Quick to devour. Memorystretches those minutes
into days, years. After
I throw away the peel,I lick the plate
like a dog, look out
the window and see howautumn has turned quite
orange. Orange trees,
even orange car tops.Our kitchen smells like
fresh orange blossoms.
If only for half an hour.
Library Lenny
As a boy he was happiest
in the library. Quiet
felt like a warm winter blanket.
Books were easier to get to know
than most of the other kids
or his cousins who called himWeird Lenny. He still goes
to the library once a week,
though he misses
the musty card catalog smell
and looking for poetry books
with the 811 designation.
A computer makes him feelanonymous, no different
than a cart. The machine's
fast but why speed in a library?
He sits with pages that
call him, softly—
when he finds them
he feels the touch
of a gentle hand.
