Orange

 

In that saffron

Seventies kitchen

in the Curragh,

 

apropos perhaps

of some question

I may have asked

 

regarding

nights being dark

and days being bright,

 

you took an orange

in hand and

named it Earth,

 

and by the window

set it turning on

your fingertips,

 

illuminating

how the dark side

advanced into light.

 

A sultana

fixed to the skin

on a cocktail stick

 

was there, then,

the kitchen, you and

me in daylight,

 

facing the sun

moving all the while

towards night.

 

We're gone

this long time from

that kitchen, those days

 

of radio mornings,

nursery rhymes

and washing lines,

 

but still it rotates,

the orange that

you set going.

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Sara Mullen lives in Dublin where she works as a teacher. Her poetry and short fiction have featured in: A Thoroughly Good Blue, Burning Bush 2, Crannóg, Boyne Berries, The Cabinet of Heed, FLARE and Poethead. She won first prize in the 2019 Ballyroan Library Poetry Competition.

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