I am walking
Again
Gently sloping two-lane highway
Graying asphalt with faded yellow lines
Curving
Curving into the
Distance
I feel it, this moving space
Endless promise
Stretching out extending
Air
Snaps cool
Against my face
Against chromium green bristling pines
A stand selling apples
McIntosh apples glowing knifesharp
Reddish-green skins
Apples piled high in heaps
Jumbled against rough wooden boards I buy
Brown paper bag of them
Get one out, rub
It clean on my shirt
Bite thin
Taut skin splits
Peels I taste
Acid pineapple flesh breaks
Tender white
Sky, a light slate grey sky covered
With high stratus clouds
And
I am sixteen
Again
Walking along
Empty road, eating apples
Heart lifted
With independence
By being out
Out
Sheltered
Under these endless
Dark pines and
The spreading
The deepening sky.