Little Lark

Snow would be the easy

way out—that softening

sky like a sigh of relief

at finally being allowed

to yield. No dice.

We stack twigs for burning

in glistening patches

but the rain won’t give.

So we wait, breeding

mood, making music

of decline. We sit down

in the smell of the past

and rise in a light

that is already leaving.

We ache in secret,

memorizing

a gloomy line

or two of German.

When spring comes

we promise to act

the fool. Pour,

rain! Sail, wind,

You, apple, are the object of my praise. I want to fill my mouth with your name. I want to eat you whole. You are always fresh, like nothing and nobody. You have always just fallen from Paradise: dawn’s rosy cheek full and perfect! Compared to you the fruits of the earth are so awkward: bunchy grapes, muted mangos, bony plums, and submerged figs. You are pure balm, fragrant bread, the cheese of all that flowers. When we bite into your round innocence we too regress for a moment to the state of the newborn: there’s still some apple in us all. I want total abundance, your family multiplied. I want a city, a republic, a Mississippi River of apples, and I want to see gathered on its banks the world’s entire population united and reunited in the simplest act we know: I want us to bite into an apple.