Scavenging Peaches in the Dark

My flashlight encircles some peaches

on the orchard grass. Most are impeccable,

although smaller than what sells in stores.

“Seconds” they are called;

too small for market, left behind by farmers.

Where there is a broken bruise,

the ants are taking their share.

The firm fruit, I place in a shipping bag.

The black fabric blends with the moonlessness

beneath the shushing leaves.

The trees, the nocturnal insects, my shoes,

we all smell of sugars. Yellow orange pubescence

rolls in the dry lawn where Mexican migrants worked.

In other rows, downed seconds rot.

The ants are taking their share.

There is no white mold yet, no syrup brown bruises.

A pink cut is open, yellow sunlight pours out.

Hundreds of stars stored banked photosynthesis

and now my flashlight finds coins of the realm.

Elsewhere, food prices soar.

Here are the ants, taking their share.

Scavenging Peaches in the Sunlight

I refuse to swipe peaches from the trees.

The Mexican migrants worked these rows already.

What they left behind, on the ground,

are small orange fires as hot as the sunlight.

I fill a bag. The peaches begin to bruise themselves

by their own touches, so used they are

to hanging alone on a firm stem swept only by wind.

I refuse to swipe peaches from the trees.

No crop failure is because of me.

Sunlight pours everywhere. The shade is heatwave.

The breeze is heatwave. Soil is heatwave.

Sunlight envelops my honesty with brightness,

but there are no witnesses.

There are precious few tractors harvesting this year.

A trade war bankrupts farmers.

Scavengers survive by honesty, broadened by daylight,

the kind of honesty that has no witnesses.

Canadian writer and farmer Terry Trowbridge has appeared in Synchronized Chaos before! He is thankful to the Ontario Arts Council for their writing grants.