This is who we are. We make
crabapple jam when our peaches fail

to change the subject.
Shocked to be stuck

with the orchard we keep
ignoring, confused at the way

it ripens again like it's alive,
we cover the sugar-

heaped pot of fruit
and wait till it turns

to ruby sap we pour inside a curve
of beveled glass. Taste a little

spoon of it: Would you ever
guess it started bitter?

And look how it glitters when
we seal it shut.

Caroline was born in Mississippi, raised in Alabama, and lives in Atlanta with her husband and four children. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Witness, Crab Orchard Review, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere.