Have you known heartbreak? Have you known danger? Have you known hope or doubt?

You remember 
lace-like residues of frost 
on windowpanes, each pinpoint 
distinct and ethereal; a prism,
a crystal city before its circuits
dissolve before your eyes.

You remember 
your mother covering your entire 
body with a towel, just out of the bath,  
as two men working in the yard 
lunge at each other with knives
and run through the house.

At the beginning of the year, 
the skies wear a veil of gunpowder.
A man gathers oranges from the trees. 
He peels them and cuts the rinds into thin 
strips. Steeped in honey, most of their
bitterness leaches out; but not all.