© Sandra Lynxleg

Bears Oranges

Memories between red and yellow are

. . .
         8.  round.
             The world is round. round
         9.  range
             Cowboys ride the open range. range
        10. orange
             A healthy snack is an orange. orange

        I get 9 out of 10. I spelled o r e n g e. I correct my mistake and         place my paper on Sister Mary Margaret's desk. I watch her place         an "o" on my paper in front of the word range. She looks at me. I         smile, and I never look back;
Mock
        a Caucasian staff populates an aboriginal school. Their
        peach-coloured walls and white-washed halls precede the arrival of         oranges to the New World;
Bitter
        bells, bells, bells
        that's all we heard
        bells in the morning
        bells in the afternoon
        bells before bed
        bells to pray
        bells, bells, bells. I love your alliteration, I tell the poet. Alliteration.         Ha! Now there's a marmalade word. Marmalade word? I repeat.         Yah, those big, fancy words that worked their way westward like         oranges;
Blood
        on Christmas morning after Mass, we'd return to the dorm to rows         of steel beds tightly bound in grey blankets. Cupped in the center         of our starched white pillows was an orange — an ingestible         sacrament we received once a year. As I gulped down the divine         poison, I promised myself that one day I'd extract the Body of         Christ like juice from an orange;
Navel
        will grow a second embedded below the rind at the top of the fruit.         I'd thrown seconds away not understanding their realness, until I         grew seconds — under my skin, on my face, beside my         thyroid, in my breast, across my cervix, throughout my uterus. I         asked doctors to remove them. They were tossed into a variety of         incinerators across Canada;
Horned
        beneath a red at night sky, past the Yellowhead Highway, en         route from New Masset to Old Masset, there lie discarded orange         peels. Fully open like the palms of hands, their emptiness is a         reminder that the fruit has long since been absorbed;

made from oranges.