"Blood Oranges" by Yoni Hammer-Kossoy, Poet of the Week

Blood Oranges

It's almost as easy

     to start a poem as it is

to peel an orange

any knife or finger

can poke a hole

                                                to get started

but peeling 

        an orange

gets harder

after that first stab

under its skin.

It only gets harder

to coax a spiral

from its skin

like a loose thread 

         pulled out

stitch by stitch

like a loose thread pulled

from an old sweater

word after word

until there's no sweater left

just fruit. 

--Yoni Hammer-Kossoy

Poet’s Notes:  This poem started out as a pantoum, and depending on how you look at it, either "fell apart", or "became something new" along the way. I suppose there are some purists out there who would claim a poem must possess one thing or another (form! rhyme! or freedom! to name a few), to which I answer a resounding maybe yes or maybe no. Or said differently, the only thing I think a poem must have is an initial stab of wonder, after which any and all forms of artistry can and should be used to share that feeling with others.

Art Editor's Note:  As with most concrete poems we publish, I decided not to include any accompanying illustration, allowing the poem to perform that function.