Mandarins to Mulled Wine

For you, I will strike a match, light a candle and in the flicker I will gather: yesterday’s mandarin peels. Forgotten upon the hearth, forgotten upon the mantle and scattered like footprints across the floor.

For you, I will forage: wildflowers, nasturtium and blackberries. I will carry the weight of NATURE in my pockets. I will sit and graze my fingers through my hair. I will gaze at the sky until I remember, a cloud
can be many things. Like shapes of the dragon, a Dogon priest, a caricature of the house plant, Monstera. 
But for you. I will move with decisive precision. 
One foot. Then the next. 
Each knot of foot and flesh will not perform surgery on the symbols of the sky — until I get a message from you.

“Don’t forget, we have to make a dish for tonight’s potluck.”

For you, I will caress my Toyota Corolla into starting. Then croon the coastal roads for the Pohutukawa tree vendor, with his baskets and bundles and roots.
I will say “Vendor, I offer you, few words but precious gold.”
He will puff on his pipe and say yes and in reverence I return to you, your voice.
“Will you hand me the salad bowl and a handful of walnuts?”
I reply.
“I will NOT sacrifice my mandarins, even for pots of luck.”

And you, with a defiant, hardened look in your eye and with a kiss on my cheek — you take my mandarins. I watch you peel the skin from their bodies and with barely another word. You separate wedge from wedge. Then my mandarins are marred with handfuls of kale and olive oil.

As if drowning, I close my eyes; my lungs about to burst — I picture the beautiful inhabitants of an evening, mulled with wine and brandy and cacao dusted bliss balls. Then, when you kiss me, all I taste is the noble sacrifice of my mandarins like fuel for the funeral pyre like marshmallows to feed our feast of friends.

But for you. I will gather ash and charcoal and I will spit the seeds of mandarins upon the earth.

For me, I will offer NATURE the nurture of compost and I will dance the rain dance with the handle of a watering can and for us,

I will show up with a salad bowl at the door sill of our friends, my hand holding your hand, waiting for the evening to turn and open.