[Stylist] a Ghazal poem

[Ann Chiappetta]

Ghazal of Oranges

Jan-Henry Gray

 

 

 

On New Year's Eve, my father overfills the baskets with oranges,

mangoes, grapes, grapefruits, other citrus too, but mostly oranges.

 

The morning of the first, he opens every window to let the new year in.

In Chinatown, red bags sag with mustard greens and mandarin oranges.

 

A farmer in a fallow season kneels to know the dirt. More silt than soil,

he wipes his brow and mumbles to his dog: time to give up this crop of
oranges.

 

The woman knows she let herself say too much to someone undeserving.

She lays her penance on her sister's doorstep: a case of expensive oranges.

 

At the Whitney, I take a photo of a poem in a book behind the glass.

Above it, a painting: smears of blue, Frank O'Hara, his messy oranges.

 

The handsome server speaks with his hands: Tonight is grilled octopus

with braised fennel and olives, topped with peppercress, cara caras, and
blood oranges.

 

No one at the table looks up, ashamed by the prices on the chic menus.

The busser fills my water and I inhale him: his faraway scent of oranges.

 

Seventh grade, Southern California: we monitored the daily smog alerts.

Red: stay inside. White: play outside. I forget what warning orange is.

 

Clutch was serious about art and said our final projects could be

whatever . . . performative . . . like, just show up with a wheelbarrow full
of oranges.

 

Jan, in all of those first six years, why is all you can remember this:

the mist rising in the sunny air as you watched her peeling oranges.

 

Copyright C 2022 by Jan-Henry Gray. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on
October 28, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

 

Jan-Henry Gray

Jan-Henry Gray is a queer poet who was born in the Philippines and grew up
in California. A graduate of San Francisco State University and Columbia
College Chicago's MFA program, he is the author of Documents (BOA Editions,
2019), chosen by D. A. Powell as the winner of 2018 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry
Prize.Ghazal

The ghazal is composed of a minimum of five couplets-and typically no more
than fifteen-that are structurally, thematically, and emotionally
autonomous. Each line of the poem must be of the same length, though meter
is not imposed in English.   

 

Ann M. Chiappetta, M.S.

Making Meaningful ConnectionsThrough Media 

914.393.6605 USA

Anniecms64 at gmail.com <mailto:Anniecms64 at gmail.com> 

All things Annie: www.annchiappetta.com <http://www.annchiappetta.com>  

 

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