How did it escape the fire?
Three corners are square the fourth torn and limp, unable to contain the scene within. I was searching for a childhood house but found the car – there under the trees – bright still, while all around is faded. “How did it escape the fire?”
The citrus coloured Citroen transports me back 30 years, and some
It was our get-about
He drove up in his fondly nicknamed ‘Bag of Oranges’
and I leaped into the sack with him
To a foreigner with no roots
He provided an orchard – his family borne of South African soil
.
For those years life was sunshiny sweet … until it wasn’t. There was no bitterness. The ‘tang’ just left the tangelo. But for some time I danced around the ‘what ifs?’
On the eve of my engagement to another
I tossed a match at the pile of snapshots and mementos
Words disintegrated until the only letters left spelt ‘ash’
Edges of photographs curled and crumbled
faces were charcoaled into anonymity
I jilted the embers for a new life in East Asia where oranges are a symbol of prosperity
.
It was Dad who took this photo in my hands
So it was never mine to burn
To him it’s of the house – he didn’t notice the vehicles parked beside
But to me: house and that car are inseparable
In researching family homes I was distracted by the scent of citrus …
… and it was unsettling
I used to eat oranges thus: meticulously scalp the pith off each segment to separate each from the whole. Now I plunge fingers into the flesh, pull pieces off randomly and enjoy the messy
A squirt always stings my eye though …
… the juice running tacitly down my cheek
a thumb retrieves
a tongue receives
Of what does it taste?
Reproach, regret but mostly revelation
I want the other photos back
the ones where I’m being squeezed in a first love embrace
the ones of me with sunshine smiles
the ones with old school friends
I want to look into my eyes and say:
“You didn’t have to seperate out and throw parts of yourself away. It’s possible to move on but preserve peel, pith, pulp and the pips in the finest marmalade.”
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