Harvest

Late summer, the plums are ripe,

Drop when a bird lands on a bough.

The woman says she’ll make jam.

She lines the plums in a wooden box –

Not as quickly, though, as the fruit

Falls to the ground.  She sits.

She sits in a lawn chair.  She is big.

She fans herself with a paper frond

And watches the ants darken the plums

(Frenzied in the maps of pith)

And the late sun etch the plum trees,

Leaves and limbs, with amber streams.

The woman says she’ll fill twenty jars:

But the sun courses down

And there is a chill.  She rises.

She drifts toward the house

Where the lights are already lit.

She hesitates.  A shadow sits in the chair.

Dusk laps at the rotting fruit.

There is a brief consolation in that.