Every summer in Ontario

great hordes of golden pears

ripen like invitations, strung lightly

 

from the cradle of knobby elbows.

Their juice will flow all season,

sprawled and sticky on unblemished cheeks.

 

The black pond trampoline
coaxes us constantly to the orchard,

a percussion of cicadas, vibrating deep in our ears.

 

We hurl  stretching bodies

backwards upending reality and flinging

our flimsy leftovers deep into lumpy foothills

 

of wandering fields—

the sky propped by fringy corn

stalks, the only witness to our secrets.

 

We fixate like greedy wasps—

the scent of syrup spilling

through soupy air, over the wrists

 

of open windows

of a house that isn’t ours now,

but forever calls me home.