Bright Tide

—for N.C.

1

Among all the harvests
these are ones we make myth of—

heat loosening squash
spicing the dew as we rush to fill

the restaurant order—
haul our ripe crates.

Organic cash crop:
to market, to market.

2

New worlds on the sky,
sungold solar systems.

Gold balls on the chain.
We map our hands in the scent of tomato.

3

Lost ones sag. Lost ones break.
Birds peck. The ground oozes.

The unpicked fruit wavers.
We catch what we can.

4

Basic: between stalks for hours
in binary motion—ripe/ not ripe,

not mental really not boring either
decisions of thumb & forefinger

forging attunement
between body & vine;

as if picking were all we were made for—
plop plop in crates

in our upturned shirts.

5

I was in the field the day you called
to say you’d lose the baby.

How your sac was broken, and there was
no saving it, just the waiting.

I stood there, the whole day wrapped around me.
I stood there, crying, smelling vine.

6

Another day of work. Another.

7

All month I thought of you, of us, the women,
of all the trying to & breaking open.

Of the rainsplit? ones, the ones that burst.

And of the smells of vine & harvest.
I wanted to give you tomatoes.

8

Here, a life is many ripened.
Sprung, the seeded cells,
a fragile mix of luck and tending.

Warm furze blur of dust & buzzing.
Tangle risen from the mud & marching.
Here we are not self but species

breaking as we bend & also fruiting
pressing onward in the long bright tide:
yes it breaks & yes it also swells—