> Hello Arthur,
               I like this one very much, you recreate the scene and the young boy´s experience of it effectively and with judiciously selected details, I should say. There are many examples of lines I really liked eg `lazy as a trout....` In S2 I felt the phrase `had been bidden´ reads rather bumpily, why not make it `was bidden´? Having said that, you do use that tense later in the poem and `bidden´ appears again a third time and I found it was jumping out at me by then, but this may be an aspect of local language use, maybe in the time and place you´re describing `bidden´  was used so frequently. In S4 what about changing `chromed´ to `chrome´? The last line of S4 also reads a bit awkwardly, what about `however I tried to ignore it´? In the final stanza I was surprised by the word `only´ since the poem is evidence of remembering rather a lot. Perhaps it should go. And if that disrupts the rhythm of the line you could insert `but´ - `But I remember the thudding knock...´
I hope these comments are useful.


Best wishes,    Mike




> 
> The Scent of Oranges
> 
>  
> 
> Strangely still that day, no children played
> 
> on the fading hopscotch grids,
> 
> curtains drawn in quiet respect.
> 
>  
> 
> " Go down and say goodbye to your Grandma."
> 
> I had been bidden. Reluctant, I dawdled,
> 
> lazy as a trout, down the sunlit stream of the afternoon.
> 
>  
> 
> I hunkered behind the world's cold back;
> 
> wet my finger to clean a scuffed knee;
> 
> sucked at an orange until my cheeks stung.
> 
>  
> 
> Heavy curtains bulged with prising light.
> 
> Plain pine, chromed handles, set upon trestles,
> 
> it loomed - choose how I tried to ignore it.
> 
>  
> 
> I covered my face with my hands.
> 
> I puzzled how to grieve, an alien art,
> 
> while perfumes of orange pervaded.
> 
>  
> 
> I was bidden to stroke her brow.
> 
> The waxen face slept on, lips slightly parted,
> 
> a glimmer of shining dentures, rouged cheeks.
> 
>  
> 
> I gave, too, the bidden kiss
> and a feather of terror stirred
> 
> at the scent of zest there.
> 
>  
> 
> We buried her in a sodden graveyard
> 
> high on the moor road home
> 
> to where she had been born.
> 
>  
> 
> Many years later I looked for the unmarked place
> 
> in the steep graveyard of secret steps and shades
> 
> but who remembers things like the locations of graves.
> 
>  
> 
> I only remember the thudding knock of homage - sod
> 
> on coffin roof, the scratch of rain on elder leaves
> 
> and hands that reeked of death.
> 
>