A Color Named After a Fruit

Before oranges were sweet, they were bitter.
The whole world was more bitter then.

Nights, unlit; wheat wild.
Each element, bound in a rind.

And then you were there, in the rift cut out of mountain.
Your mouth with its triangle-window.

In the garden, the branches are dropping their blossoms.
Then bending with citrus, laden with sun-weight.

We can sit and watch the fruit go orange,
a hue that moved through five tongues to come to ours.

Let the moon go ochre. Your milky teeth soft
at my bared silk.

A hummed line. The thrum of the primary colors.
Beneath the pith, the pulp.