The Pear

by Liz Beasley

It is the new dream, how the light
folds around her feet, the fruit gathered
from the garden, the other hard stones.
She presses the knife against her thumb,
the strips like thin paper, pale green,
spiraling softly around the flesh, the white,
exact shape. For a moment this skin
could be any set of stairs, and sweet scent
or blade, nothing now can stop it.

 

Liz Beasley is Assistant to the Editors at The Georgia Review and
is finishing her first book manuscript. She has had recent poems in Green Mountains Review, Sonora Review, and Pleiades, among others.