Blood Orange

The skyscrapers get lost in the hazy aura
morphing into orange as in a magnetic

simulacrum of hell. The sun becomes
a sad fruit hung low in the blazing sky.

The army is placing plastic gas mask boxes
in front of the apartments before declaring

a curfew until the end of wildfires that
get close and closer hour by hour.

At dusk, an uncanny orange silence descends
all over the city except for the screams

of ambulance sirens, of firefighting helicopters,
and of the acute cries of burning animals.

We put our clothes into the fridge, and ice
onto each other’s naked bodies when you

say even the world burns into its ashes you still
would fuck me on its embers. That is how

I know you are burning for me while
our windows are turning into blood orange.

 

 

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Özge Lena
Picture Yellow, Cherry, Orange by Mark Rothko

 

Biography:  Özge Lena’s poems have appeared in The London Magazine, One Art, Orbis, 14 Magazine, Abridged, and elsewhere in various countries including the UK, USA, Canada, Singapore, Spain, Iceland, Serbia, France, etc. Özge’s poetry was nominated both for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and shortlisted for the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition and the Ralph Angel Poetry Prize in 2021, then for The Plough Poetry Prize in 2023,  and for the Black Cat Poetry Press Nature Prize in 2024. Her poem “Here is a New Heart For You” was featured in the storefront of Barnes & Noble bookstore in Dublin, California for the National Poetry Month 2024.

 

 

 

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