The Job of the Poet (Jordan Ranft)

A mote of dust settles on her eyelash as she takes a deep breath above

her morning coffee. The dog waits by the door with butterscotch fur.

A perfect Cara Cara Orange from the farmers’ market enters the scene 

like a bag of gems knotted at the navel. Skin flashing in the grey haze 

of dawn. I say ‘Cara Cara Orange,’ and my tongue bobs along like the 

head of a bird. I almost missed the Scrub Jay hiding in the oak branch 

because I was so enamored by frost-flecked silence. It was behind the

house, calling out for love’s sake, asking it to flutter back and watch 

the morning nestled in a wing. From its downy cloak perhaps they spied 

the pale bubble of my face peering dumbly through the glass. I open the door 

and the dog slips outside to shit and wander along the yard’s periphery,

lending a careful sniff to the daffodils we planted yesterday in the drawers 

of an old dresser with chipped paint. I wish I could cleave deeper into this 

moment and split it open. Is there an algebra behind this beauty? An appropriate 

moment to weep because the dew is stuck perfectly to the window. I split 

the orange with a knife and hand my love a dawn-hued opal. There’s 

only one of this and I found it. I found whatever it was in the half-quiet 

that hung like a bell in the window. It fattened on the stem until too heavy 

for the branch and fell into my open mouth. All I had to do was be there.

***

Jordan Ranft is a Best of the Net and Pushcart-nominated writer. His poetry chapbook, Said The Worms (Wrong Publishing), was published in 2023. He has individual poems published in Cleaver, Carve Magazine, Beaver, Eclectica, Bodega, Bayou, Rust + Moth, and other outlets. He lives in Northern California where he works as a therapist. 

***

image: Ashley Beresch. Check out more of her work on Instagram @ashleyberesch