First, She Cuts the Stems

For Yona Harvey

Systems are the end of a rope and the rope. Measure and border between out, in. What desire’s entwined there.

A, say, Black woman cuts peaches down:

A paring knife will do the trick. Orchard to house: A booming taxonomic doing.

Systems are frictions that flimflam as liquids. They abrade skin. In some systems, skins are tenor. Vehicles, elsewhere. In, out?

An abrasion lets. Low knocking at a door means: a Master/mister? Some doorways kind of clear their throats. From over: Bring them faster! Systems are what you’re steady doing. Louvered shutters let the light.

A metonym for how out outside or inside in? Well?!

Christ, gal, it’s hot as hell!

Some windows kind of roll their eyes. Cut azaleas smell red as heat—

Systems are will. Squealing wood, hinge? —oil that! Gentle rattle, slats a-tremble means:

a breeze in, say, a Master’s/mister’s room.

Black wench! Clipped finches’ shrill in brass lattice.

A bowl of peaches set down fast as— Hurry up!

The door swung clear—said, something cold! A passage out to a corridor, then a kitchen. There’s a pitcher what sweats out itself what was in it.

Some kitchens kind of slit the skins. What was in them come undone. Systems are—.

When the, say,

Black woman cut—a paring knife will do—then dropped the stems: entangled, jutting out the kitchen bin—. Some houses kind of suck their teeth. The pitcher the Black woman pours into a cup. Fluid. —be so stupid! Finches, azaleas rendered pets, décor for those for whom some systems are maintained. Lazy! A paring knife. Will.

And what are you doing— Calls of finches, the walls flinch. with that—red as.

The bowlful of peaches, pell-mell, while the breeze’s cooling sweetness—