By nine, the field is buttered with sunshine.
I’m trying to unhinge my jaw set tight
with cold leftover from winter. The ground
warms & thaws,
but you are not Persephone
& you do not return & now I must decide—
do I furrow this soft earth, spread seeds, tend,
weed, wait?
Or do I let the fields lie fallow?
Do I let the orchard bloom & swell & fall & rot?
Still, I imagine I’d wander the orchard in late autumn,
picking up apples & cracking them in half, looking
for worms, & eating their grainy flesh,
their sweetness
starting to molder.
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Elizabeth Deanna Morris Lakes was born in Harrisburg, PA and has a BA in Creative Writing from Susquehanna University and an MFA from George Mason University. She has appeared in The Rumpus, Cartridge Lit, Gulf Stream Lit, Crab Fat Magazine, and SmokeLong Quarterly. Her book, Ashley Sugarnotch & the Wolf, is forthcoming in April 2020 from Mason Jar Press