Blood Orange by Nathan Dennis

Blood Orange
 
I met a blood orange at the grocery store. 
I wore gloves when I picked up the blood orange.
I wore gloves when I brought the blood orange home.
I wore gloves when I took off my gloves. 
 
I asked the blood orange to get a test,
But the blood orange said that tests were hard to come by
And to trust her, because oranges are organic 
And I can trust organic. 
 
And the orange asked me if I had been tested, 
And I said no, but I wore gloves when I picked her up.
So the orange said she wasn’t worried, so I shouldn’t be worried,
But if I was worried, she would just peel herself. 
 
But I was very hungry. And her peel looked very clean. 
 
So I ran the blood orange under some warm water. 
And I lathered her peel until her peel relaxed.
And I peeled her peel with nails clipped clean,
Until the scent of citrus was screaming in my nostrils
And the hemoglobin in the pith strained into my hands 
As rivulets, flooding the channels of my palm lines.
And the death god that loomed so large in my mind
Shrank so microscopic when looking at an orange unfurled, 
Asking me so kindly to eat. 
 
And vitamin c does a body good. 

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Nathan Dennis is a Manhattan based playwright and poet of Floridian extraction. He holds a BFA from Tisch, NYU. He has been published in Punchdrunk Press, The Cabinet of Heed, Neologism Review, Crepe & Penn, and The Magnolia Review. His most recent play, Circle of Shit, was produced at Dixon Place in March, 2019.

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