cherry tree

we used to
pick the cherry tree
clean every year
when they ripened
black and fat
upon the fragile
limbs and branches.
and the man and wife
who owned the house
knew, and turned
off the lights
inside so that we
could have are fill
and think that
this stolen fruit
was the best
fruit of all. and
the juices would
run down our skinny
arms onto our white
t-shirts. and when
so many of us grew up
and stopped our harvest,
moving on to our own
trees in life,
we heard that
the wife had died
and that the man
had taken a saw
and cut the cherry
tree down.