Bloodletting

I ladle the
somber eyes of saskatoons,
the pucker of summer raspberry
in the blistered lattice of my palms.
Rotten teeth of sunrise
swallowing poplars like dancing cotton candy.
Pommels of dark trunks growl under their breath
along the cherry hallways, splashing leaves
in hurled gusts.
A stained purple on my hands,
sweat-laced in the shine
of blackberry taste buds,
sheltered thorn & the burnt bitter
the juice mingled in slight thumb bleed
sizzles steel on my lips.

I think of Northport as a tightness
in my eyes, how the lake tapers
into itself on the drive south, home,
a brightness intensified by my smallness
in open sky. I pluck the rain from its
furrowed brow & am drenched by
its rage & prayer. This year
we have to cut back the plum trees’
lanky branches, uproot Russian olives
before their shallow zeal crowds
the mountain ash.

A father’s limbs go sullen, dejected,
tomatoes along the barn where concussion blood
sprinkled the soil two years ago now.
Glasses grow wider, eyes narrow & dimmer.
I clutch sodden wood chips under toe
where wild turkey have clawed at the garden.
This could be my last year to touch
with nervous fingers the dewdrop coals
of cherries. While I haunt myself
in a place never to be mine,
I hope to return, with the
rise & fall of a season’s empire
as if I were just blinking.