WITH ORANGES

by Lindsay Garbutt

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Sometimes all I can see is the made thing.
The frame with its ornate faux fabric folds
draped from thin rectangles of gold
lining the canvas. The still life arrangement
piled high for the light and its shadow.
Crinkled paper for friction, time, some small attempt
at protection. One orange darker with distance,
the rest bright. Its tissue peeled back
like a smile, the stem peering out
like a nipple. To the side, another lies
artificially petaled, each section blooming
outward like a trap. The tabletop’s shine off
which they could each tumble; the night’s blue
descending, gathering them up in its hands.

Lindsay Garbutt lives in Chicago, where she is the deputy editor for Poetry. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Bennington Review, Massachusetts Review, JSTOR Daily, As Seen: Echibitions that Made Architecture and Design History (Yale University Press, 2017), and elsewhere.