Bitter Oranges
Stuck where one country ends and the next begins, where the trains and their tracks terminate. To the right a wide river that divides one language from the next spills slowly into the Atlantic. To the left a bridge: too high, too far away to traverse on foot. There is a ferry, but the last one of the day has already gone and come back again.
I wait.
Fat palms line a promenade where no one walks. White boats moored in hazy blue water. A spiral staircase, uncontained by walls, climbs to nowhere—half complete in its decay, it stands in silhouette against the grey wash of dusk.
I wander to a plaza lined with cafes. Most of the tables are empty. Where there are people the conversations pause as I pass. Men, tanned by Mediterranean sun, tip their caps, sip thick black coffee from small ivory cups.
I settle at a table near the plaza’s orange trees, their green leaves muted. The branches are heavy with small fruit that hangs like maybes, bowed by the weight of numbers, not size or sweetness. As I write, sip my own dark brew, oranges fall, making soft sighs in the ashy dust beneath the trees.
My words are lost, swallowed in colors too bitter to chew.
Too bitter? Add sugar, add heat and stir.
These are the recipes I used… Both have helpful pictures and detailed step by step instructions.
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