William Bartram

Where the peaches grow, the peaches grow

into a source of reusable fuel.

Where deer kidney could also power engines

if deer kidney didn’t taste so much like plum.

The Chumgut River is pallid and cold.

Lingering through April to play a game

of Oak Hearts – where wet tree pulp is bashed

by pine beams for first go at the town jug.

O the industries that will grow one day!

The shoe industry! The shoe support industry!

The shoe support industrial complex:

poems and novels about shoesome shoes.

Novels have characters named Mendifort,

poems have skin kissed into turmeric glow.

Games of Oak Hearts have an immediate rush,

under the sky, and let’s not forget that jug.