Jake's Flea Market

grandmother knows
how the picker of plums becomes the orchard

oh when the snowmelt was inside her for years
and in him for years the melted snow flooded
the creeks in his veins
flooded the swollen streams in his arteries

oh she watched him go by the lane from the village
into bloom among the plum trees
and in the icicles that dripped away inside her she knew
the fruit trees blossomed for him   an inclusion

when the leaves budded   she became his wife