In a city you keep your Galas,
your freckled Delicious,
in a cold dry place where they lose
their smell, like roses.
You take the same crisp moon-shaped bites
but don’t expect to see
the rusty tracks of the apple-fly worm
or its sunken love-bruises. You forget
how the fruit should fit in your hand
while you and the tree both pull
until the tree lets go.

 

The apple remembers.
Set one down on its stem and stare
into the crater where the blossom was,
nestled in the five hills,
until you recall the thought before
the one you are having now,
and the one before that
and before and before
and all the way back
to the garden.