Mia and The Peach Tree by Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad

when Mia died, a part of me 
crumbled with her mortal bits
after all I’d watched her grow
from a dollop of cream and chocolate 
into a canine cascade
of rippling cocker-spaniel hair
a beacon of permanence 
thumbtacked to all my milestones.

the moon was limpid white
when the gardener dug the loam 
at the eastern corner of the lawns 
and we lowered her into the earth 
planting a peach sapling above, 
that flowered in four summers.

then in the fifth year of her passing,
the first fruits strung like Christmas lights 
thrust through their leafy covers,
I watched with a ripening heart
the peaches plump like garnets
weigh down the boughs
the velvet sheen of their skins
the texture of spaniel’s ears.






Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad is a Sydney based artist, poet, and pianist. She holds a Masters in English and is a member of Sydney’s North Shore Poetry Project and Authora Australis. Her recent works have been published in Red Eft Review, Glass Poetry Journal’s Poets Resist, Eunoia Review and other magazines.