Upon Stealing My Neighbor’s Peaches & Other Poems

Tayve Neese

Upon Stealing My Neighbor’s Peaches

from her crooked tree leaning

into my yard—which blocks the sun

from my summer squash, 

my rosemary bush—

whose branches linger low

so I have to bend, stoop

when I rake and mow.

Is it theft? Those peaches, sweet,

stretching toward my home,

fruit formed to the width

of my own palm.

This fuzzed and pitted offering

comes searching for my tongue

even after pink blossoms 

sink into themselves

after I think all beauty 

has gone.

A Boy I Once Knew

was so auburn and speckled.

He wielded a hammer, squared

off window boxes for each pane,

painted the wood green,

planted coral impatience

and in each direction 

through my glass

there were petals.

In my mind, he is still grasping

a hammer, smelling 

of sweat and cedar,

laying down plank

for this wobbling dock

of my life that has carried me

over its murky currents.

I can hear his iron 

hammer in rhythm,  

as he lays out the splintered

cypress I travel across,

and all other men’s faces,

their perfect angular jaws,

their robin egg eyes,

will be measured against

the beauty of his clenched knuckles.

Acceptance

I am content in these diminutive

rooms, drink tea

from my chipped porcelain cup

as sun touches green

vines and trees.

Although I still wonder why paper

smells more like desire

than the calloused palm 

of a lover, I can mark the day 

I crossed the point of no turning back.

There was nothing 

more than the sound of rain 

on palmetto leaves, 

scent of salt and sulfur.

Oh, life of my own, thank you.

You came as if rambling

through fiddlehead ferns,

over mud-rich soil,

unbeckoned, surefooted.