Issue 2: B.T. Shaw

Genus Fortunella

The tumor is the size of a kumquat,

shadowy dark spot on the mri.

You were maybe expecting

something classifiably citrus: lime or

ruby-red grapefruit. The surgeon’s

a genius, or so his nurse says.

The genius circles the kumquat with light

from a pen. The woman beside you

squeezes your fingers, the tumor

has fingers, the woman beside you’s

a peach. A peach is not citrus.

The tumor’s a kumquat lodged

in the left frontal lobe, taking up space

that used to belong to the name

of the peach, the pair of you

joined nearly forty-nine years.

Forty-nine—that’s seven

times seven, seven squared.

The genius is moving his mouth

while you do the math. Seven is prime,

it is safe, it is lucky. The genius’s mouth

is still working, but you can’t parse

what he’s saying, you can’t crack

the nouns. Now he is smoothing

his pointer over the image, soothing

the kumquat. The gesture’s not

touching, you want him to stop,

to cut it out, but he is speaking,

the genius is talking, he says,

I can’t

                        cut it out—

and when you glance at the lightbox

his face for a moment

is a giant plum, blue, hovering, lit by sun

like tree fruit you plucked as a boy,

hunkered high in the limbs, waiting for a target—

an ambling dog or stranger’s car

at which to chuck it—for the heck of it.

Some luck

                        is like that. And now

the surgeon is the surgeon again,

and the peach, what’s-her-name,

reaches for your arm. Seven is nothing more

than threes plus a one. And the tumor is

a mock orange. Size of a kumquat.

What it knows is squat.

--B.T. Shaw

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