Oranges
On a dark Friday, in the early night
I walked past an orange
on the pavement
by a parked ambulance,
in a setback carpark,
under faltering streetlights
and hefty air.
No stars were shining
but this orange seemed to do so,
and for a fleeting moment
I had the mental image
of a lady in a long thick skirt,
scurrying up the outside stairs
of the two-storey building,
(which I felt pretty certain
was a collection
of retirement flats,)
as she unknowingly dropped
her oranges from a hole
in one of her bags-for-life,
and her not knowing
she would be close to dying that night,
not knowing a solitary orange
would sit so perfectly upright,
shining, with more chance than herself.
A mile and a bit later,
along the bypass
I found another orange
and near its lantern presence,
was a dead horse
in a sloping field.
Helen Grant has been published in several magazines such as The Poetry Review and The North. She has been longlisted for The Live Canon award and shortlisted for The Mairtin Crawford award and Creative Future Writer’s award.