Blood Orange Pulp
Somewhere in the cliché of a dark alley, I’ll find you.
The sticky-sweet smell of fruit flesh bleeds juice into my glass
Pulp remains from macerated flesh,
And the violence of grinding.
Fruit skin is resistant, almost inviolate - a weapon is needed
To cut to the zest
The slightest of pressure violates man-skin
Making it sigh, and whisper, and yield its dark smell.
Fruit-blood and sweet pulp are drinkable, thinkable
Very little clean-up, no story to tell
While the bloody pulp of beating is personal,
Unthinkable, unpardonable,
Messy in mind.
Bio:
Ginna Wilkerson is a doctoral candidate in Medieval Literature at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida, where she also teaches in the English Department. Her research interests include Scottish culture and history, medieval Arthurian literature, and contemporary poetry. Her poems have been published in Gertrude, Fog City Review, The Machineries of Love, The Lucidity Poetry Journal and Currents. Academic credits include The Explicator, The Banyan, and Mythlore.
