Allyson Boggess

Citrus

He tries to peel the tangerine into one long 
wedding veil with scalloped edges 

but can only produce little thumbed layers 
of sweaty skin. 

His nails rust for the day 
and smell like the solvent his mother used 

daily on the dining room table. 
She wanted a mirror in the wood,

no snot-nosed smudges or crayola landscapes, 
no shavings of wooden pencils 

in the crevices between the leaves. 
He wanted cornflower and salmon button 

daisies and a bunny with a flush of fur 
around its chin who whispered to him:

I could do wonders for you, 
could curl your eyelashes,

paint a button on your lips 
that won't ever work, just for show. 

Peeling the fruit, he misses sucking on maple 
walnut notches and wants to taste their 

brine again like a boy lacking the water to cry. 
He thinks the day deserves the time.




Allyson Boggess is an assistant editor at Harvard University and lives in Somerville, 
Massachusetts. Visit her website at allycomelately.com.