Exteriors Too Vibrant Not to Be Clearly Visible

William McCloskey’s Wrapped Oranges on a Tabletop (1897). Photograph by Sotheby’s, New York, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The above painting inspired a new poem! Read the poem below. For more poems, click here.

Exteriors too vibrant not to be clearly visible (even through paper)

Wrapped Oranges on a Tabletop by William J. McClosky

Here there are no other foods. Only these spheres, whose name and color

snuggly intertwine,

their reflections hinged to, yet rising from, the glossy table’s top.

Ashley’s name is more like the way these twists and twirls of tissue paper

obscure, in part, orange peels.

With only the briefest pinch of two fingertips, they could be rustled, unwound, or even

ripped open wide,

tossed aside, revealing an assemblage of naked pebbled rinds.

But to get to the fruit, one must dip deeper.