Transit of the Orchard Moon

At dusk the radio towers comb the fog, and every wire hums with plum-colored static. A fox moves through the vacant baseball field like a struck match learning to be night.

Behind the school, apples gone feral split open, their sugar calling moths in pale spirals. The moon hangs low, a bruised brass coin, pressed to the town's cold forehead.

On my walk home, puddles keep small galaxies, streetlights shiver in them, then break. Somewhere a train drags its iron vowel west, long and blue as breath on glass.

I carry one windfallen fruit in my coat pocket; it warms against me, fragrant, imperfect. By morning it will brown into sweetness, proof that even damage can ripen.