Kaley Hutter

Tell me I too contain trees

is what I want to say at the orchard in Crozet,
               as you gather each branch into your basket
                              of vision.

A wind scuttles through your yellow dress.
               You drape your hands over a runny
                              globe. It gives as if remembering you,

nuzzles from its stem, not yet heavy with the wet ripeness
               that one day will lower it to the ground,
                              where it will pull off flesh and color,

and it will bury, and sleep,
               and emerge as green fingers slipping up into the sky,
                              a new lineage which remembers the cool earth

and the skin of a red garment,
               a labyrinthine pit, a folding in July heat,
                              and your hands cupping around it like the face of a firstborn child.