When you’re washing them out like this
the citrus is replaceable.
It might be lemonade
or maybe orange.
It could be something heavier
like grapefruit, even – the thing is
they all smell the same,
like summer.
I feel like sunflowers. I feel
yellow-orange and citrusy.
Replaceable.
But also permanent,
planted in the heat
installed for the summer.
I bought a limeade at the farmer’s market to taste
that tricky immortality –
she teases us like that,
holding court for only three months
but clinging to the inside of our cartons
the other nine.
Ruby Gibson is a first-year studying theatre and gender & sexuality studies. She is from Cleveland, Ohio. Her life goal is to write a play with a bunch of ghosts in it.
