AFTER READING “MOCK ORANGE”

Already, it was so:
the scent of orange blossoms
at the window, sun-jostled, bearing

the sting of the finite.
I thought of birds in those branches
as jewels, hard, refracting

light onto our walls, and knew
whatever gleaming they may have done
was not for us.

Knowledge came
disguised in sweetness
and with such ease, it astonished.

We knew, eventually, we would want
different things. Then
we started wanting them.