Oranges

Perched up on a ladder
you eat an orange.
The taste of salty
sweat ripe
on your face that morning
of a normal pattern.

The polka dot pattern,
bed sheets the latter
of that nostalgic morning.
The hue of orange
that ripens
the aftertaste of the salty

popcorn. It’s your birthday as you salt
driveways in a typical pattern.
The bucket’s ripe
as you lay it next to the ladder.
You adjust your new orange
hat as the morning

recounts the time you mourned
over chicken that was too salty
and seven dinner plates of orange
were set for no one in a desolate pattern.
On a ladder
you rip the signs into a ripen

trash bin, the chicken no longer ripe.
It’s the morning
after when you find the ladder
broken and you still taste the salty
tears. It’s a pattern
by your 60th birthday, remembering the orange

of the day when you pack your kids oranges
in brown paper bags ripe.
As you kissed their foreheads in pattern,
the morning
broke. The rain salted
the Earth and your spirits lift as you go fix the ladder.

When the pattern of oranges
is too fresh and the ladder is broken too many times, thoughts ripen
as the morning brings about the new day and you learn to love the taste of salt.