Janine Certo’s most recent poem to appear here was “Eating Pork Ribs With You” (February 2014).

Less Acid Than Orange
By Janine Certo               

A tug from the small-vine
grapes, an avocado half,
resting in its skin, already
sliced into pale crescents.
The wrinkled flesh

of a date. At the Dearborn
Super Greenland Market,
people consider a variety
of produce: hands extend
in a choreographed dance,

offering one another samples.
At the coffee bin, someone
holds the lid while the other
scoops it in, the floral
beans clapping raucous

in their bags. Like the edges
of countries, smiles break
so wide, the world speaks
of it: peace, beauty, dark mountain
of tresses spilling out. We were

given hearts meant to open
like the peels of clementines.

*This poem is dedicated to Lynn Fendler