W. Todd Kaneko

My grandmother once fed me
clementines in the living room
while she spoke with my father,

words in Japanese dropping
like spiders from her lips, scurrying
across the carpet and into shadow.

My father shook his head,
spoke in a low tone about mortgages,
about housepaint and plaster,
about my dead grandfather

watching us from the box
containing his ashes on the mantle
with a candle and a shriveled orange.

Where fruit is an offering of love
or a splash of kindness to distract
a boy from conversations about death,

my tongue can’t get enough
of the curl of citrus, sharp and cloying
then turning quickly to thirst.

I want it to be fine to eat like we are
standing in the orchard,

like it’s late summer and the boughs
are bending under the weight

of the harvest, like the language of trees
is something I can understand.