In this time, happy branches bow
with young fruit so heavy
limbs must be lopped *** off the trunk. ****** God needs to
******borrow another son. *** Sisters, it’s this,
we say, or your whole garden. And you— *** you will want to hide
your fruit behind the family’s coats in a hall closet—you will want
your sons to stay still, buried
under your long coats, close—their bodies soft. Breathing,
maybe curled up, your boys will wait in a cracked suitcase,
******or a wooden box, *** just for the time
no bomb siren shakes
your trees. No, no one ever really knows. *** Imagine
a night your courtyard’s lit by the fire of burning
*
oranges still clinging to their branches. Remember, this whole
orchard could burn.

*

Aliah Lavonne Tigh has authored a poetry thesis, A Body Fully, and last year, a paper examining the economic backdrop of revolution. She holds poetry and philosophy degrees from the University of Houston and began her MFA at the University of Indiana. Presently, she splits desk time between her second full-length poetry manuscript and research for a smaller historically-themed poetry project.