As a seed, I was shot out the back end of a blue jay when, heedless, she flew over the meadow. Now, a willow, I drowse above the pond where their bodies float—skin gilded with algae, lips parting the surface, chests arching to the sun. Her sighs ripple outward—her lover drinks them in.

They are wet-silk hair, glistening sweat. Tracing each other’s folds, a slow, open arc startling minnows. Their toes stir the mud where my roots explore.

The blue jay died mid-migration. I barely recall her. Here, they are the only sonnet: lips on sun-warmed skin, their kiss that bends reeds. Below, their legs tangle like my branches—fluid, unpruned.

A heron spears the pond. Startled, they sink. For a breath—water holds them. When they rise, the town whispers of hauntings.

They are not ghosts—just peaches overripe in August.