We snacked on cherries in the afternoon:
we clamped our legs onto the branches brown
and snapped the rubber stems from off the crown;
we washed them, sliced them open with a spoon
and scooped the seeds out, each a somber moon,
the grubby worms all squirming out of town,
afraid we’d rinse them down the sink to drown—
and then the cherries, finally cleaned and hewn,
ignited in our mouths, as soft as June.
But August ripened; Dad cut down the tree.
We settled on the stump and gnawed store grapes;
we jammed our teeth with sour plums in fall.
We still can’t clamber up a trunk to see
the birds at work on homemade cradle shapes,
the acorn gems that squirrels unearth and haul.
Backyard Apricots 