I love to apple-pick with my beau,
but only in their season
when the rest of the world is falling.
I look forward to the angry ones,
the flash of red against a backdrop of brown.
The blushed ones, too: pink in the cheeks
to hide the holes and bruises.
And, oh, yes! The quiet allure of faded golds,
unassuming in the weave of branches.
It’s a menagerie that forever makes me swoon.
When the skies are dreary-eyed and
school is in session, they are all the most delicious.
Sweet, yes, and with that earthsome tang only
apples can provide. A cagey bent of saltiness,
a tease of cinnamon, butter in the teeth—
But perhaps that’s just me romanticizing it.
When school is out again, and when
the summer recess swells and the sun is
everywhere, they, too, fall down:
succumbing to the brown, the gray,
the decomposition of that, their once-was
season. Forgotten in neglected grass,
they slowly fade into the earth from which they came.
A cycle filled, unceremonious.
I tell myself, and him beside me if he’s there
as we scroll across the clouds on a summer lawn:
When the fall convenes, let’s return to the
orchard. For I love to apple-pick. And it
will be a whole new season, with new
and untasted fruit in a wild, untamed
menagerie.
