The ornament harvest, my father 
who keeps fireflies under the sink and 
the fruit left glass in our teeth--

My brother and I wear sunhats
in the living room--
The mildew must is from the
cardboard boxes on our hips--
we've been preparing for the harvest--
We know bare feet.
We have always kept August somewhere
in our house--
In my father's lightning bug
mason jars underneath the sink--
In the callouses the drive way
gave my mother's bare feet--
in the dried white flowers on the book
shelves and in puddles of raspberry jam
becoming an ocean in a shortbread cookie--
We don't waste time
stringing lights when it becomes
December-- my father just pops
open another jelly-jar of 
fireflies who laugh red and green
into the evergreen grove--
star-crowned tree tops
push up through the carpet--
part the rug-- fold over into cream soil--
the sofa shifts to the side
nudged by cinnamon roots-- 
prick of pine needles
on our noses-- 
branches protrude in front
of door frames-- we limbo
to the breakfast table under each limb--
The living room contorts
into an orchard once again--
We water Christmas trees
in hot chocolate morning--
Put on eggnog sun screen to prevent
us from burning again like gingerbread
men while we pluck glare from glass orbs
-- cinnamon mixes with freckle and we harvest the 
ornaments for breakfast just like
our father taught us-- twist
the metal hooks to strum each
apple-- each quince-- each 
gold finch perched and ripening
in glitter-- each planet
swollen from drinking so many
of our grandfather's mugs of hot chocolate
and whiskey--
the fruit remembers the war-- it remembers
wrapping paper tumble weeds--
it remembers growing-- and 
the first time it was pierced onto 
a metal hook to drink chocolate with 
the rest of us in the morning--
the fruit remembers the year my
mother was sick and we all got a brother--
it remembers robot dinosaurs
and the steady slumping of the sofa--
it remembers the advent wreath with
the shout purple candle and the lost heads
of the wise man's camel--
it remembers foot prints on the snow roof
and carpet soil knees--
the fruit remembers years when we didn't
grow Christmas trees-- when
the carpet was bare-- coffee stained
and the lightning bugs underneath 
the sink died in November--
the fruit remembers our foreheads
and the trash bags of wrapping paper 
we had to sleep in for warmth.  
my father always takes the first bite--
picks the glass from his teeth and
spits blood on the china plates--
the one with the real gold in the rim--
next is my mother who always thinks 
they taste like figs
then we pass them to my brothers
and I-- I think the ornaments taste
like pizzelles-- like a spoon full of
jam-- like split oreos and 
dissolving chocolate squares under your
tongue-- like teeth brushed with
candy canes and torrone--
my brother tastes spoons of honey--
the aluminum wrappers of gold coins
we planted in the yard to grow fortunes.
The fruit remembers-- and we pass to our
left so everyone gets a bit--
pack our mouths with gauze and go
back to check on the orchard overcoming 
the television set and the curled back bone 
of the ceiling--
the trees grow well this year--
prune the ornaments free of tinsel
and the fireflies sleep on the branches
only to be collected back into the mason
jars and stored carefully under the sink.