Alison Cimino

Lemon-Lime

Why this way with women? It seems force
broke the pencil tip, yellow pencil,
writing out our sallow lie.

Oh you in your mane of light,
yellow hair and a doe-eyed look —
How I, in my animal, wanted to strike
and smelling my own fierceness, retreated.

Oh yellow heart that is she and me —
How jealousy is a yellow dart, how like loneliness
It glows phosphorescent               bright and tart —

Residue

So this is what I'm given —
orange zest and oil
trapped under my fingertips.
After the pulp and tincture of fruit
juice on the tongue
always the pith —
The inside rind, white
flesh — scraping it out
with my front teeth;
chewing it, tasteless as it is
or bitter.

Alison Cimino is an adjunct professor of poetry and compostion in the Boston area,
as well as a visiting writer in nearby schools. Her poems have appeared in
Borderlands Texas Poetry Review, Ibbetson Street Press, and The Cambridge Codex Project,
a visual art installation to promote literacy. contact •

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