Citrus

The vacuum of space

smells like peeled oranges

and broken hearts,

not steaks and raspberries.

This might be an uncertain fact

based on everyone weeping

after gazing at the cosmos,

the telescope’s Bambi frame

unable to hug. If its eye

could squint at the night sky,

it might do the same: the Pac-Man

sociopaths of black holes.

Red giants going the way of boy

bands. We are more than kin.

Enough to make you swallow oranges

to get rid of the vinegary stink

after the door slam, silence lasting

longer than a light year. Enough

to make you fling the peel past

the troposphere in defiance.