“I like oranges,” she says, again,
midnight hair thrown back,
amber eyes flashing.
I had heard her, the first time.
But it was no fault of mine—
or was it?—we had not shared the fruit:
the first of her Dear Johns had followed
my failure to fathom her implication.
“I hate honeydew,” she later spat,
spying my melon in her Coldspot.
Yes, I knew, but had no chance to explain
it was a Buena Vista orange-flesh cant.
I was again, not long after, banished
for buying the wrong brand of banana.
Her passions ran oddly deep, I knew,
but they seemed to meet my needs.
So now, with a sense of déjà vu,
I anticipate her words as she reclines
on a blue and white striped serape
in the setting Mazatlan sun:
Yes, to be sure, I already know
as her amber eyes flash
beneath those midnight locks—
“I like oranges,” she says.
“Even the white stuff.”