Margaux Novak has been published internationally in Little Patuxent Review, The Worcester Review, Sanctuary: Audubon Society Magazine, and Wraparound South. She is a recipient of the Guy Owen Award and winner of Dartmouth College’s Frost Place Poetry Award. Novak was nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize for her poem, “Sea Witch,” which appeared in Little Patuxent Review. Novak received a master’s in creative writing from Dartmouth College. She was raised in coastal North Carolina and now resides in Boston, Massachusetts. Find her online at www.margauxenovak.com.
Peeling Oranges
It’s that first puncture I crave,
when I dig my thumbnail
wound-deep into the freckled rind
and the skin peels back a little,
spits up at me.
I separate peel from body,
pull back a thick layer of web
where pith abandons fruit.
Help unfurl its cayenne skirt.
I recoil the rind to my nose, breathe—
when you breathe an orange you have to
commit; can’t turn from that fresh hope—
Citrus sluices across my tongue
sweet, tang, the way summer
feels: full, dusk-lit, gone.
Clementine Unbound 