songs/poems i write

a poem about apples

i was considering doing this for a slam poetry thing at my school. here it is:

•••

i was at the orchard the other day and saw a man collecting apples.

he picked them from the ground and instead of holding them in a basket, precariously piled them in the crook of his arm, cradling them.

then,
          one
                 by
                     one,
he threw the apples at the tree they came from, knocking more apples down, bruising them.

i asked him what he was doing.

"picking apples."

"why don't you just climb the tree?"

"it's better this way."

i left him to his life.

once he had knocked all the apples he wanted down, he took off his sweater and collected the fruit, tying it into the sleeves and wrapping it in the body of the cloth.

he started walking towards a river, weighed down by the fruit.

the apples were heavy that season;
i had carried some myself
but i either had less of them or i was somehow better at carrying because i was much less weighed down than he was.

we weren't alone in the orchard.
there were other people, but i think they must've been carrying too much of their own baggage to pay any mind to the man who used his clothes to weigh himself down with apples.

he got to the bank and i stopped.

should i have interfered?

surely it wouldn't have made any difference if i did or didn't.

i wanted to ask him how he was, but my tongue stayed pressed against my teeth and the apple seeds in my mind said,

it          doesn't        matter.

maybe it didn't matter, then,
because he turned to me as if i had spoken.
as if to assure me, he said, "just crossing the river," and smiled toothily.

the man who used his clothes to weigh himself down with apples
walked into the water
until he was submerged.

i swallow

and taste

apples.

•••

there it is, now please judge meee