The Apple Tree
The apples were small and hard and sour, but the branches
were welcoming with the deep V in the trunk where,
as a child, I perched just under the robin’s nest.
The tree spread its branches over the back corner
and draped a large arm across the neighbor’s fence,
like a teenage boy getting fresh at the movies.
I was sixteen and there were many boys
that summer when my mother had a hysterectomy
and came home from the hospital smaller and sadder
The neighbors said a hail of unripe apples were falling
into their swimming pool, defiling the blue plastic basin
where their boys splashed and shouted all summer
My father said, “cut it off,” and so they came
with ladders and buzz saws and then
the branch was gone, the robin’s nest with it.
I saved one blue egg for the daughter I would have
one day. “Is this real?” she would ask, as she crushed
it between her small fingers.
The tree went into shock and dropped apples that year.
My mother lay on the backyard chaise and cried for the tree
as ants blackened the stump and rotting apples softly fell.
**
Published in the 2013 Fish Anthology
This poem was selected for an honorary mention in the Fish Poetry Competition
The apples were small and hard and sour, but the branches
were welcoming with the deep V in the trunk where,
as a child, I perched just under the robin’s nest.
The tree spread its branches over the back corner
and draped a large arm across the neighbor’s fence,
like a teenage boy getting fresh at the movies.
I was sixteen and there were many boys
that summer when my mother had a hysterectomy
and came home from the hospital smaller and sadder
The neighbors said a hail of unripe apples were falling
into their swimming pool, defiling the blue plastic basin
where their boys splashed and shouted all summer
My father said, “cut it off,” and so they came
with ladders and buzz saws and then
the branch was gone, the robin’s nest with it.
I saved one blue egg for the daughter I would have
one day. “Is this real?” she would ask, as she crushed
it between her small fingers.
The tree went into shock and dropped apples that year.
My mother lay on the backyard chaise and cried for the tree
as ants blackened the stump and rotting apples softly fell.
**
Published in the 2013 Fish Anthology
This poem was selected for an honorary mention in the Fish Poetry Competition