Food and Culture at Raven

I Swear

by Janet A. Baker

by this tangerine tree on the redwood deck
by the fog-covered bay where the seagulls call
I swear by the tang of tangerine

by the orange of sex and the green of love
swear by my fresh citrus fingers
by each run of juice down my arm

I swear by this tangerine orb
flat like the earth at its poles
by its opening

as its skin yields to my touch
as its sections surrender
more orange than orange

I swear by foghorns
by crows landing lightly on treetops
where I look down upon them

by crows yelling “forget it, forget it”
I swear to them I will have love in my life,
love that is good for me
swear by this tangerine tree.

Janet Baker (Encinitas, California), a professor at National University, San Diego, has chapbooks published by Moon Journal Press and Inevitable Press. Her poems have appeared in Room of One's Own, The Rockford Review, and California Quarterly. She won a California State Poetry Society award in 2002, and co-edited Van Gogh's Ear: The Uncollected Poems of James B. Allen (National University Press, 2002).