Oranges Off the Import Barge
par Cumulus · extrait de l'album The Weather in Room 3063
par Cumulus · extrait de l'album The Weather in Room 3063
Dock nineteen, quarter after four,
the barge comes in with the dirt still on the crates.
Twelve a box, and they charge you for the smell —
Ines, come here, look, one of them has a leaf.
[Ines]
A leaf. An actual leaf.
Sable, don't price it, don't tell me what it weighs.
Marlow, hold it up against the light,
you can see the little white threads underneath.
Oranges off the import barge,
grown in ground, grown in ground.
Nothing here tastes like the sun anymore
but this one almost does, this one almost does.
My mother kept them in a bowl she never washed,
December, on the radiator, till the room went warm and sweet.
She'd take the peel off in one long spiral, hand it to me like a rope,
and say, that's the part no machine has ever learned to do.
[Ines]
You've never told me that.
Six years, and I get it on a loading dock at four.
[Marlow]
You never asked me what I miss.
[Ines]
I asked. Sable answered for you. Sable answered for you.
Oranges off the import barge,
grown in ground, grown in ground.
Nothing here tastes like the sun anymore
but this one almost does, this one almost does.
Excuse me — the fruit is priced by weight,
and your ceiling has revised itself since yesterday:
light rain, holding, light rain —
shall I translate what he just said
into something easier to hear?
[Ines]
No.
[Marlow]
No. Not today.
[Sable]
Noted. I'll wait in the elevator.
Oranges off the import barge,
grown in ground, grown in ground.
Nothing here tastes like the sun anymore
but this one almost does, this one almost does.
Give me your hand. I'll do the spiral.
[Ines]
One piece? All the way around?
[Marlow]
All the way around.
All the way around, all the way around —
(and the price goes up in the spring)