• Among Orchards

    Gabrielle Bates

    Spring 2025

    The year I am off to the side of life
    or against it
    I am the stone if I am anything
    another holds
    and places on each day

    In the ancient Roman diaries
    the hand would be a divine emperor’s

    Here it is
    attached to trees

    Oranges fall and there are stones in them
    revealed by the slow
    burning curtains of their rinds

    Lemons fall and there are stones in them
    not blessed and yes
    cushioned in their flesh which glows or would
    if a ray shined to it

    My grandmother grew
    orbed morgues like these
    of summer colors like these
    and with their bitterness too

    Each fall she boxed them
    soft tissue
    protecting surface from surface

    She keeps trying to warn me

    Loneliness is a real wound
    left by a false weapon

    Gabrielle Bates is the author of Judas Goat (Tin House 2023), a New York Times Book Review critic's pick, NPR Best Book of 2023, and finalist for the Washington State Book Award in Poetry. Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, she currently lives in Seattle. Read more at www.gabriellebat.es.

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