Wild Pear Tree

by Kaveh Akbar

 

it’s been January for months in both directions      frost
over grass like pale fungus like
mothdust     the branches of the pear tree are pickling
in ice white as the long white line running from me
to the smooth whales frozen in chunks of ocean
from their vast bobbing to the blackwhite
stars flowering into heaven     the hungry cat gnaws
on a sliver of mirror and I have been chewing
out my stitches wondering which
warm names we should try singing
wild thyme cowslip blacksnake      all the days
in a year line up at the door and I deflect each saying no
you will not be needed one by one they skulk off
into the cold      the cat hates this place more than he loves
me he cannot remember the spring when I fed him
warm duck fat daily nor the kitchen vase filled with musky blue
roses nor the pear tree which was so eager to toss its fruit so sweet
it made us sleepy     I stacked the pears on the mantle
until I ran out of room and began filling them into
the bathtub     one evening I slid in as if into a mound
of jewels      now ghost finches leave footprints
on our snowy windowsills     the cat paces
through the night listening for their chirps
have frosted over      ages ago we guzzled
all the rosewater in the vase still we check for it
nightly     I have forgotten even
the easy prayer I was supposed to use          our memories
in emergencies     something something I was not
born here I was not born here I was not