When we lift our arms
apples seem to jump to our fingers
as if squealing, Pick me! Pick me!
while we navigate among chickens
underfoot and a guard-rooster
who glares, who disapproves,
who follows our every step.

Bees from a stack of hives
hover and buzz about our ears.
Sun heats, shade cools,
the hose washes apple-skin sugar
from the flesh of our hands.

It is not toil, it is faith
as beneath our feet roots pull
nourishment from earth,
water glistens from leaf-tip
and I cry to the sky,
Pick me! Pick me!


From Foggy Dog: Poems of the Pacific Coast (CreateSpace, 2018).
This poem first appeared in Roanoke Review.
Used here with permission.