Instructions for a Glass Orchard

In the morning the trees invent their own weather, crystal fruit sweating cold in the sun. A ladder leans into a hush of leaves, as if the air has been tuned by a careful hand.

I step between rows where each branch is a throat, singing without words, only tremble and drip. The ground holds a dark rinse of last night's rain, and my boots learn the grammar of soft mud.

Somewhere a bell of ice is struck by wind. The sound goes through me like a spoon through honey, slow, deliberate, a sweetness with edges. Even the shadows taste of metal and pine.

By noon, the orchard starts to melt into its own reflections. I gather what I can: a palmful of light, and the small ache of it, warming in my pocket.