Lisa J. Cihlar

A CHERRY TREE

You
might think that a cherry tree
is just a lovely thing to look at,
white blossom to red fruit to black branches
against a bluer than blue
January sky.
But you would be wrong.

Stand on a ladder for hours
in the sticky July heat, sunburn
that part in your hair, and pick
and pick and pick. Fill black metal pails,
over and over, for fifty cents each full heaping.

Forget yourself for a minute-
in the morning, when the dew runs
down your arms, throw a rotten brown cherry
with a touch of fuzzy mold
at the boy you might like.

When the boss sees you,
he yells and tells you that you
will get fired.
And you don't care
except that you need the money
for the fair,
and to buy new clothes for school.
You say you're sorry,
you'll never do it again.

Later,
he gets you alone
where cherry pickers dump their full buckets
into the big stainless tank of cold water.
He steps too close
and backs you against the steel. Feel
the cold through your summer shirt.

He reaches out and touches your hair.
That's all.
Touches your hair.
And says it's so red,
red like cherry wine.

* * *

YOU AND ME WASHING THE DOG AT MIDNIGHT

Our bush tailed dog
comes chasing home
after a romp in the field
with burrs in his tail.

I yank at a burdock growing
at the edge of my garden,
the leaves pull off, but that long
taproot is tenacious,
shooting up new
as soon as I turn my attention
to the beans.

Our bush tailed dog
comes yelping home
at midnight
bathed in skunk.
Cans of tomato juice turn
his white fur pink.

In bed for a short nap before daybreak,
we are accustomed now to the smell,
the cling of it,
the power and sexy musk of it.

Making love in the early gold light,
I lick a spot of tomato
off your collar bone,
cling to you like a burr.

Lisa J. Cihlar lives and writes in rural Brodhead, Wisconsin, with her husband and too many cats to count. She has had poems published in Word Riot, Wicked Alice, Salome, Qarrtsiluni, Best Poem, and other journals. She was selected a runner-up in the 2007 Wisconsin People and Ideas poetry contest. Her favorite way to spend a day is to write a poem in the morning and pull weeds from among tomato plants all afternoon.