Love Poem: Shower Orange, by Mia Stone-Molloy

We step in still undressing
The time to take on risk
Running out

Her hands are small like mine
Half of our fingers interlaced
Her other five wrapped around an orange–
Bright like bait and sweet as a strategy;
Palm-shaped and water-full

The steam carries the citric mist
Hissing when we crack it open
We let the peel fall
Resting around our feet
Like the butchered map of a round world

And we eat like
It’s the only thing we can say to our ancestors
Divided by everything flowing and breaking in the earth
And we eat like
3000 years of guilt
Is gathering in the drain

We hold each other while the window rattles
While something small inside us shivers
And I know
God will find the goodness between us
In the same unconditional way
I must love everyone to love someone shifting
And I know
Evolution will find a purpose within us
In the same unthinking way
It lets things live that are good at living

But we do not ask permission to be enticed
We let the stickiness spill
And trust the falling water to keep us clean