Sometimes a single apple
Can ruin the whole lot.
Perfect
and shiny
and ruby-red,
crumbling into bruised wrinkles
and spotty, brown lumps.
Before long,
the bowl is brimming with the sundown of a harvest's life,
and flies begin to swarm.
And even when some are left,
bright and fresh,
newly ripe,
I won't go near them,
for fear of turning them over and finding the ugly,
mushy
evidence of their flaws.
Just like the others,
almost worse,
because they allow for an optimism,
in your hunger,
you allow the glimmer of hope
and reach for one
hesitantly.
But no,
it's just like the others,
only deceptive,
pretending to be something that can satiate your needs,
when in truth,
it's just another piece of rotting fruit.

Sometimes you reach out
through phone cables and the distance of towns and topography,
to tell me you are sorry
for your carelessness
and the barren landscape it created
where nothing could flower

and I add your words to the compost and topsoil I've nurtured
alone
over time and distance
from the heart you broke, sadness and rust and the words you spoke,

to grow my own garden
of flowers and fruit.

This evening, the sun has set in raspberry blush and apricot.
Beckoning down with it those trees that shift through emerald tones the shadowed grass has forgot.
She lies draped, feasting, curved - carved not in marble but with
the ochre the trees leak when the sun is high
Deep and rich. Hands dig into figs and pull the insides out, ******* the ambrosia dry
Leaving fingertips dripping in rose-hip gold oil
myrrh that lights up that dusky soil
So when you touch the ground here, the mud is soft like the moonlight over her
And the juniper berries oft get stuck between your teeth
and make the air taste sweet.
Reflections in water mark no shimmering Daphne. She is flesh and blood
That desires not only to eat, drink and dance
But to feel full in her heart, to cry when needed
Flawed as a child is. She pulls her hair back from her face too regularly
and spits out cherry stones like a boy unimpeded.
And above her head soft stars form in Ariadne's guise
A vision of rich apples and pears, dark by midnight skies.

I've seen to it to be left about,
a coursing, hushing let down.
To prove to you I leave rot out,
I see what's best about my withering brown.

A coursing, hushing let down-
take this as seriously as I say I do.
I see what's best about my withering brown.
My equinox benefits only you.

Take this as seriously as I say I do.
I'll come back and fall to fruit,
(my equinox only benefits you)
when warm tides cause seeds to root.

I'll come back and fall to fruit,
so see it to be left about.
A warm tide caused seeds to root,
I prove it and leave the rot out.