“Backyard Peaches” by Chelsea Duarte

Author Questions:

  • Sometimes poetry is what you choose to leave out; how do you support the intended voids in your writing? This is a paradox—when does silence NOT speak loud enough?
  • Can you define a point when the language of a work caters too much to the writer’s interiority, and is too personal or too unexplored to receive interest or understanding from the audience?

i’ve noticed less of things
living, shucking peach stones
like eggs from my flesh

amused only
with fruits and blossoms. ripe,
and undisturbed by fruitflies:
how a peach beats through frost

while the neighbor’s frangipani stirs
under full bloom, at our house,
not even mosquitoes come to nest
in shallow bowls. and the flies,
they drop from icy wings.

turning a peach in my hand,
a chilled sun bruises over
the red edge of its sunspot
drawn onto an inky center.

whose tallness deepens
stones here? where stones
bud into eggs; where eggs
fruit over wounds.

© 2011 by Chelsea Duarte

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Published:
04/08/2011 / 3:04 pm
Category:
Poetry
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