Wish

Thirteen plum trees line the back fence of my parent's house. The trunks themselves fall on my grandfather's property, but a great deal of of the fruit falls in their yard.

In spring (if the last frost decides to show mercy), the once bare trees explode in blossom. Bees return to their yard en masse. I am allergic to their stings but still enthralled by their presence, so as a child I learned the delicate dance of good and evil, sin and absolution. A bee would range out, surveying the branches, and I would back up in unison, lingering out until it returned to the bud.

Around the time the sun grows unbearably hot, the small green plums turn from yellow to gold to red. A pungent smell of fertility and life hangs in the air that clogs the nostrils and threatens to make one gloriously ill. Many of the plums fall in the soft uncut grass of summer, and a quick run of the lawnmower never fails to expose hundreds of them below.

In their sad decay they turn ungodly purple on the branch. Eat one accidentally- or on a dare- and the sour tast of sun-fermented wine fills the mouth.

Three months of the year the thirteen plum trees sit unclothed and alone, their old-lady branches sitting stark and spartan against the unforgiving grey sky.

I wish to return to those trees, to rest my back against the sagging fence and feel their shade on my face.

I wish.