for Margie

the legs of the step-stool sink into the cool, wet earth
as we reach for the tiny, red fruit-gems
the cherries on the lower branches are gone, she tells me
offerings to the barefoot, bandana’d demigods of the land
in return for the firstfruits of the blueberry bush and cherry tree
they overturn the humid, gauzy quiet of the acres she has loved for decades
I want to ask her how long she has been friends with this tree
or if the chickens, lost last year to foxes
used to perch in its branches, the way I want to
this is the shape of care, I think, picking cherries together
she shares her earth-gifts to nourish me – body, battered-hope, and all
I carry my sour jewels home, imagining

how I could possibly render their slick flesh
into something as sumptuous as our hands that did the plucking