The Peach Tree

I love C.S. Price. For him it was a Willow, and for me it was a Peach Tree.

The Peach Tree

Stretched down like a knotty branch
of Wheeler's peach tree loaded to falling
with ripe harvest, is mom's arm
"You'll make yourself sick again."
The drip, drip juice on my skin dries sticky
Bits of hay fall from air stiff with gas fumes
Wheeler's tractor roars, it is caked and cracked
with dry dirt like the skin of old elbows.
Wheeler is a road without lines just gravel
Where I learned to stand. Now I use sidewalks
like grey skillets that cook my shoes
Along them people sip coffee on balconies.
My wheels are attached to a chair in an office
Where the air is conditioned
The baby chicks I used to spy on in cattails
Are city chickens I keep in a cage
On the weekend I drive away to a farm on the edge
I ask the ripe peaches to fall, if they’re ready
I ask the baby to come, if it’s ready
I’ll stay home and buy a rocking chair
Set it up by the potted tree, on the back deck
Listen to shopping carts loaded to falling
In my skin healed of grass cuts I’ll smile
with peaches make myself sick again.