Another Composted Poem
by Emma Sheiman
Wendy Cope lives in empty orange peels.
She becomes juice, brimming in the concave skins
like small, pulpy rivers or a smattering
of sticky ponds.
I collect the bits of her
in a pile and arrange the ragged pieces, watch her embody
a bird, a bicycle, a whole orange—
imagine bridging the gaps with needle and thread.
I cannot bring myself to sew her in place,
to stop one shape from swirling into the next.
Tomorrow, she will form hieroglyphs in the compost bin
and I will peel another orange, and behold it well.