Poetry: “The Fruit Picker Basket, Too Heavy for the Child to Use, and Beginning to Rust” by Willow James Claire

The Fruit Picker Basket, Too Heavy for the Child to Use, and Beginning to Rust

How the violet streak of glitter across her collarbone tasted; the sound of the engine as the man I’d trusted pressed my head harder against the hot hood. It’s amazing what the mind can carry that the hands can’t, but still I wish for fresh juice in the morning, my father loading his pistols with inviting eyes. By summer, 42 states will attempt to legislate the people I love out of existence. Meanwhile the dawn’s clouds goosewing over the smog as I take my stupid little walk for my stupid little mental health. Phoenix, Arizona: there are so many ice cream shops. And so much to regret. The last time I saw the sea, I shrank from its coldness while the love of my life danced in the salt-spun foam. Is attention, then, another cruelty? No wonder God never proved himself to me: I talk of tenderness, but I can never unlearn how to clean a gun. Fingers slow and gentle as a duckling. Not just capable of pressure in the trigger finger, but used to it, missing the fun of its familiarity like an old friend. This isn’t witness, that radical act; rather something more pathetic, wheedling At least I’m trying to learn. When we remember how to build the guillotines, I won’t ask if I’m worthy of absolution or defenestration. Anymore, I just try to remember that when my mother asked for fruit for breakfast, it was never a tool which brought the oranges down from the flowering tree. It was my hands.

About Willow James Claire

Willow James Claire (James O’Leary) is a trans poet from Arizona. Their work has been nominated for the Best New Poets, Best of the Net, & Pushcart Prize anthologies, & has appeared in such journals as Frontier, Protean, Booth, Foglifter, & more. Willow holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, and currently serves as a poetry reader for ANMLY.