No, she could barely speak about peaches 
–suns in baskets on tables–on the 
table inside. She'd seen them! 
short-furred, late-light-colored, 
edible creatures, she told me, 
hanging like apples in Eden. "And even

the light was like I'm dreaming!" A dream 
like a movie: impatient–so clear- 
alarm, so cool you could see machines 
helped make it. A long picture of hanging 
peaches, a pair of sun-hot juice-cool peaches 
with human faces under green-blue leaves,

from which, one said aloud to the other, 
hung not far but separately: "So. Even we 
are afraid just now," as if their bees 
had been suddenly killed. And "Yes," 
said the other, "but the fear may end."

Said the first: "Will it end soon?" 
The air was white and orchard-blue 
with smoke. She saw them in closeup. 
"But wait," one said, "I loved 
the knife that pushed, pushed harder,

against my self–sharp, on edge, 
cold as metallic water." Last night 
it broke the silence: "It cut my 
brown, sweet bruise out!" speaking wildly. 
"It cut my too sweet heart right out."