Ceci n'est pas une orange, Charlene Kwiatkowski (June 2026)
Ceci n'est pas une orange
At three, the world ensorcelled
me,
gilded my eyes to glory: a hummingbird
hovering over a leaf or an earthworm
entertaining dirt. Look up, look down,
no lack of images to feed my wonder.
If my mother gave me an orange,
she would peel it so completely
I didn’t know it came stitched with pith.
It was a grade school teacher—
a tall, peristeronic woman bobbing along
the blackboard—who divested me
of my adulation, insisted oui,
though I desperately wanted
to not believe her.
gilded my eyes to glory: a hummingbird
hovering over a leaf or an earthworm
entertaining dirt. Look up, look down,
no lack of images to feed my wonder.
If my mother gave me an orange,
she would peel it so completely
I didn’t know it came stitched with pith.
It was a grade school teacher—
a tall, peristeronic woman bobbing along
the blackboard—who divested me
of my adulation, insisted oui,
though I desperately wanted
to not believe her.
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