falling to pock the pavement like warfare. Green

markets are begging off boxes of peach pits

and raspberries that melt into soft mulch against skin.

I haven’t had a good plum since childhood,

I tell another writer while we ripen in the afternoon sun.

Memory makes plenty of the hard ornament cherries,

the sour strawberries growing wild by the pool,

drooping clusters of the mulberry in the neighbours’ yard.

They stained our hands instantly, deep purple slipping

between the lines of our fingerprints and dying our nails

a grey that would last even after washing, shared tattoos

with the friends I’ve lost touch with, taking only the lesson

of pinching honeysuckle blooms to get at the sweet.

I didn’t appreciate 

the seasons, the difference between blossoming spring

and swollen fruits of summer, and now I’m stuck

with Silvia’s fig tree, the years falling one by one.

Stepping over casualties, I call to ask my sister

if she remembers the mulberry tree, our fat harvest.

Yes, she said, phone static like the crackle

of autumn. At some point it died.

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Elizabeth Coletti is an editor, writer, and museumgoer from North Carolina now living in New York. She is the editor in chief of The Branches Journal, and her work has been published in Green Linden Press, Gone Lawn, and elsewhere. Read more at thebranchesjournal.com or @elizabethcoletti on Substack.