I Hope, An Orchard

 
As it opens, still, my mouth fields

her long ghost spit pushed

against my teeth. It was not hard

for her, I know, because she said

she does not remember. The way she held me down

on our grandparents’ couch. There was a meadow

 

cindering on my tongue. How, even

if she cannot recall, arson

buries all sound but the dead popping

at the heat. And here, perhaps

 

an orchard is beginning, as they do,

or, at least, as I hope to have heard,

that beautiful things can grow after

all but the soil seems to be gone.

 
 
 

Peter Mason is a poet from Rochester, New York. He received a B.A. in English from SUNY Fredonia in 2014. He is the founder of |tap| literary magazine. His poetry has been nominated for the 2014 and the 2015 Best of the Net Anthology and has appeared in Vinyl, Muzzle Magazine, Spry Literary Journal, Rust+Moth, Red Paint Hill, and elsewhere.