Orange Trees
we sit under a pavilion in summer, and even the air is as lazy as we are.
the fish in the pond flick their tails, idly, drifting under bridges and the shadows of the orange trees, and the dark leaves flutter in the occasional breeze.
i lay my head on your shoulder and i rest my hand on your knee – i know you’re ticklish there, because i know you – i delight in knowing you – but i dare not test the silence, and so i know my fingers cannot twitch,
and i think:
whatever else we are, whatever else we become, someday, when we’ve grown as old and gray as winter,
a small piece of us will always belong here,
together,
in this silence;
in this still moment in which we loved each other so unbearably much i’m not sure how my chest could contain it,
and in which i didn’t have to say it
because you felt it, too.
Persephone Kirkland Delatte (they/them) is the aesthetic coordinator for Periwinkle Literary Magazine and a grad student. They are a writer and an illustrator, and they also make jewelry, embroider, and speak Italian. They are currently working on a debut YA sci-fi / fantasy series, and their poetry has been published by F(r)iction and The Mark Literary Review.
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