It was nothing I could put my finger on

            Which made it worse

            But didn’t shake my certainty

            The sea, I told myself,

            Doesn’t need to justify a wave

            We lunched

            Wordlessly on the shore

            The gulls called out

            Occasionally a breeze disturbed the sand

            I kept my as-if eyes ahead

            Searching the horizon for a sign

            No matter how the clouds congealed

            Or dissipated in the distance

            My tongue was cloven

            When she passed the tangerine –

            Our third –

            I took a mortifying age to peel it

            The small segmented globe

            Sat in the palm of my right hand

            Like the kind of sponge-ball

            I used to pitch 

            I thought about those days

            Of earnest trickery and boredom

            Before the world got complicated –

            When all I needed was to throw

            A strike against the wall,

            To fool the batter with a curve

            And nick the corner of the plate

            We’d drawn in chalk –

            And everything depended on the outcome

            Of a game on summer nights

            The only one in sight

            Saw that I had crushed

            The fruit before I felt

            The juice

            She kept her peace and 

            Spared me

            Explanations