Poetry of Issue #8        Page 47

Sweet Potato

You are a warm stone in my waist band
massaging my back as I climb up hill

A cooked sweet potato blanketed in aluminum foil
a perfect food for a biker

This fall day the leaves are orange
you are an orange moon
a noon day snack for a long ride

We are hidden, traffic is a whistle miles away
an occasional horse passes on the trail

My bike a whisper, greased and ready
just me and an orange Bianchi

I remember orange curtains in my mother’s kitchen
and the anger that purpled there

Agent orange peeled off skin burnt orange by fire,
fathered limbless babies

My father tried to comfort with food
he would quarter a navel orange
zest spitting in our spitting kitchen

I would suck in the juicy insides
escape on my bike

tonguing the fleshy membrane
lodged between my teeth