Peach Orchard
Before you get to the slough,
you have to walk down
an old part of a road
too buckled for traffic,
next to an old peach orchard
that is no longer harvested
but still yields peaches on its own
on a few of the trees in the fall,
and might yield more
with a little attention.
Storm by storm, the soil
has begun to slip toward the slough.
The base of the trunks
and the top securing roots
have become exposed
like old fingers from a palm,
and in the middle of winter
when the rain is at its worst
thousands of peach pits
wash up from the soil
and litter the road,
as if cobbling the old path.
If you grab a handful,
your palm will remember
the fuzz, your mouth the days
that a sweet dribble
fell from your lips and chin.
Winter
The light does not dwindle
at the end of the day of work.
It vanishes, stolen
by a magician
like a tablecloth
set with dishes,
and though moonlight fills
the street of shorn leaves,
it is but a pale reflection.
And, so, I too face the mirror.
San Francisco Uber
His tribe left in his homeland,
he serves, driving
visitors to bay vistas
and attractions as marked on a tourist map
or risen to the top
of an internet search
thinking of his love for his brother
dead in Grozny
these twenty years,
carrying a tune from a village
thick with vowels
and difficult consonants
his chest nearly leaning
on the wheel, foot heavy
both gas and brake.
He wants his adopted city to have planters
in all the windows, like Paris,
fewer iron bars,
hands ready for violets, pansies, chrysanthemums,
roses wet, heavy,
able to survive a day on his lapel,
is that too little to ask, he says,
or is it too much,
a few blossoms, everywhere
Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz Country, California. He has a digital chapbook available from Little Popple River from Red Wolf Editions and print chapbook from A Filament Drawn so Thin from Red Bird Chapbooks
Before you get to the slough,
you have to walk down
an old part of a road
too buckled for traffic,
next to an old peach orchard
that is no longer harvested
but still yields peaches on its own
on a few of the trees in the fall,
and might yield more
with a little attention.
Storm by storm, the soil
has begun to slip toward the slough.
The base of the trunks
and the top securing roots
have become exposed
like old fingers from a palm,
and in the middle of winter
when the rain is at its worst
thousands of peach pits
wash up from the soil
and litter the road,
as if cobbling the old path.
If you grab a handful,
your palm will remember
the fuzz, your mouth the days
that a sweet dribble
fell from your lips and chin.
Winter
The light does not dwindle
at the end of the day of work.
It vanishes, stolen
by a magician
like a tablecloth
set with dishes,
and though moonlight fills
the street of shorn leaves,
it is but a pale reflection.
And, so, I too face the mirror.
San Francisco Uber
His tribe left in his homeland,
he serves, driving
visitors to bay vistas
and attractions as marked on a tourist map
or risen to the top
of an internet search
thinking of his love for his brother
dead in Grozny
these twenty years,
carrying a tune from a village
thick with vowels
and difficult consonants
his chest nearly leaning
on the wheel, foot heavy
both gas and brake.
He wants his adopted city to have planters
in all the windows, like Paris,
fewer iron bars,
hands ready for violets, pansies, chrysanthemums,
roses wet, heavy,
able to survive a day on his lapel,
is that too little to ask, he says,
or is it too much,
a few blossoms, everywhere
Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz Country, California. He has a digital chapbook available from Little Popple River from Red Wolf Editions and print chapbook from A Filament Drawn so Thin from Red Bird Chapbooks
