Winter in Sarasota by Nick Vagnoni
When sacks of oranges showed up
in my Miami Publix
I thought of Sarasota:
On my way to the supermarket at night
my windows up
against the burnt-piss smell
that drifts down from the Tropicana plant,
the smell that actually turns orange in the fog
lit by the glow of the airport.
Stepping out of my car
into the cold, sparkling parking lot,
that odor, replaced by the feral orange grove
blooming across the highway—
the last dusty rows, thick with man-tall weeds,
girded by new condos, a medical center,
a retention pond.