A Bite Out of September Trout Lake, Washington

by Tricia Knoll

Last night gorge wind blustered down and shook the barn,
frantic wind to follow up weeks of droughted summer.

Crunchy hard fall pears, some call them winter pears, plunked
down into golden grass. We still hoped wind brought rain.

We got mist. Floaty fog, a sky-lifting mid-morning
curtain opening on foothills but not Mt. Adams. A gauziness

that did not water. The golden lab grabbed a knocked-down
tennis ball-green pear, tossed it as if it might bounce.

She took bites, one, then another and another,
one bite per fruit, the pears I’d hoped to poach.

Those pears with white, oxidizing-brown bites,
gouges the shape of fallen angels.