Megan Rowlands’ poem challenges the supposed ideals of a domesticated life and champions something much wilder. Illustration by Anne Bastian.

The world is ripe with Georgia peaches
plucked straight from the tree;
skins slick with lush creams, essential oils,
pruned perfectly.
Destinies polished and strung tight as pearls
plucked, one by one
into corsets and aprons and four-door sedans;
hands smearing flour against child bearing hips.

Yet another fruit grows,
delicious and dark as wet stone;
thorny limbs spreading into shadows at dusk,
thick skinned, small-boned.
Scotch and clove cigarettes marinating in her veins.
Abandoning the charade of filtered mouth
and rotted dreams and hybrids on a string;
uprooting tradition, smile throbbing
like a heartbeat against swollen lip.

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