"Oranges" is an interesting poem because it details not one but two rites of passage, the second of which is less perceptible but far more profound than the first.
The first, and most obvious, concerns male-female relationships. The poet tells us that this is the his beginning attempt to court a member of the opposite sex:
The first time I walked
With a girl, I was twelve,
Cold, and weighted down
With two oranges in my jacket.
As such, given the importance of love, marriage, and building a family of one's own, it is an obvious passage to a more mature state, all the more so in that the poet is successful in overcoming difficulties in pleasing the object of his affections.
It is in trying to give his companion what she wants that the poet goes through the second, and perhaps even more significant, rite of passage. It turns out that he has not brought enough money to purchase the candy that she has chosen. Instead of admitting failure, though, the poet makes an unspoken appeal to the human sympathy of the store clerk to assist him in this dilemma:
I took the nickle from
My pocket, then an orange,
And set them quietly on
The counter. When I looked up,
The lady's eyes met mine,
And held them, knowing
Very well what it was all
About.
The second rite of passage involves self-confidence and trust -- the confidence to make such an appeal, and the trust that the clerk will sympathize with him as a fellow human being who has, presumably, also felt love and overcome obstacles in its pursuit. The importance of this is underlined by the symbolism of the brillliantly colored oranges -- one exchanged for the candy by the grace of the clerk, the other remaining with the poet to be eaten at the same time as the purchased chocolate, at the conclusion of the poem:
I peeled my orange
That was so bright against
The gray of December
That, from some distance,
Someone might have thought
I was making a fire in my hands.
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