I ate an orange

The stovetop glared an angry red and
smoke rose from burnt eggs
left under the burner last Saturday.
And the water growled low through bubbles
boiling upward until I filled my
Peet's mug.

I ate an orange, tore my
fingernails under its porous skin
and they smelled like citrus--
California citrus, grown ripe and shipped off
to us in the desert, so we too can
taste that summer.

Through the first
real December snow the night hazed
its yellow twilight, reflecting porchlights
and glowing streets across the settling
dust like shivering prison bars.
I took a sliver from the pale globe in my hand--
separated in chunks, stripped into orange-white triangles;
and its world fell apart--

but it was three a.m. and my feet were cold, even
in the black church socks I hated,
wore only for warmth, fearing cold. Fearing acts of
procrastination. That sour tang on my fingers.

And I pictured the black of tires six inches deep,
spinning small white whirlpools in the covered street,
wading through those drifts in the sleepless morning,
so quiet and calm--
California on my mind and in my mouth.