The Yale Review

4 0 Y J U L I A H U N G R Y H A N N A H L O U I S E P O S T O N She reconstructs her ruptured orange peel while telling me about the fancy meal (such slick glass noodles, she could slip them down without the use of teeth, and bloodless beets no longer than a tea-fork’s tine; pellucid silver wine; a piece of uncooked fish in lemon sauce, so spare and colorless it was completely imperceptible against the platter’s ghostly porcelain, and on her tongue it melted clear away – she swallowed nothing). Pressed between her palms, the bitter peel is seamless as shellac. It’s empty and the orange won’t come back. ...