by Brigit Pegeen Kelly

    My father said I could not do it，

    but all night I picked the peaches.

    The orchard was still， the canals ran steadily.

    I was a girl then， my chest its own walled garden.

    How many ladders to gather an orchard？

    I had only one and a long patience with lit hands

    and the looking of the stars which moved right through me

    the way the water moved through the canals with a voice

    that seemed to speak of this moonless gathering

    and those who had gathered before me.

    I put the peaches in the pond's cold water，

    all night up the ladder and down， all night my hands

    twisting fruit as if I were entering a thousand doors，

    all night my back a straight road to the sky.

    And then out of its own goodness， out

    of the far fields of the stars， the morning came，

    and inside me was the stillness a bell possesses

    just after it has been rung， before the metal

    begins to long again for the clapper's stroke.

    The light came over the orchard.

    The canals were silver and then were not.

    and the pond was——I could see as I laid

    the last peach in the water——full of fish and eyes.