A Side of a Fruit Box Crate

The simple things of life : a wrinkle
slashes the label from the far arm

of ‘T’ in Trader down through River’s
‘V’ and ‘R’ in Pears, white at the high

points where color abraded an orange
background to form new whitecaps, navy

ocean. The wrinkle fades into black
wave backs, blotches rimmed with green, flattened

like the trade ship’s direct perspective.
A hole in the sail reveals not sky

but wood grain as glue lines striate faux
sky and bisect the wrinkle : a palm

crease, a stylized sunset rendered
from memory. Three tiers of burnt sails

echo the mid mast sails as the ship
cuts water, white froth caught against hull,

light source imaginary, outside
the frame casting half the hull pure black,

froth and paint-scrape the only whites found
as one line strung taut round its pulley

echoes the white wrinkle. Fiery
trim highlights mast and line, picturesque,

true, but saved oddly enough by its
commercial composition : Trader

in the sky, tomato red letters
outlined in yellow used for tiny

Brand. To the left REG U.S. PAT. OFF
rests under TR parted from Brand

by the wrinkle. Pears hover above
the sea crowned by Rogue River Valley.

A blue pyramid—Packed and Shipped by
on one line, ____oot and Company

INC. on the second—anchors the ship,
a large gash erasing half the first

word, Medford Oregon, USA
cropped, Contents 4/5 Bushel balanced.

Schmidt L. CO. Portland OR a narrow
streak of script not to read, not to see

the ad as it appears here today,
antique, fifty years since pre-printed

boxes replaced the labels pasted
on a crate’s cracked side, but its land-mass

as it roams like a coast eroded
by a wood grain sea, punctuated

by nail head islands, the scrape and grate
against other crates as they tasted

the faded 500 scrawled beyond
the ad’s map edge and flung the graphite

coordinates into bits. The bits
rediscovered bit by bit persist.