Scent
My sister asked me to take down a dead apple tree in her stand of old trees. The tree yielded easily, its tangle of branches, once a labyrinth crossed by generations of flyers, whooshing down. After dropping the tree, I cut it into logs and stacked them in my shed. Bit by bit, they were buried under the woodpile. Many months passed before I reached the deeper apple wood on a winter night.
old-boughs
aglow in the woodstove
an orchard fills the room
Your Seat Cushion May Be Used as a Floatation Device
Back then, we had to dress up to fly standby. Sometimes winding up in first class—my sister and me in tights, pretending we might belong among the crystal salt and pepper shakers. I knew how to open a bulk-head tray table at nine, without anyone ever having paid a fare for me—learned the endless loop of smiling and the power of saying “yes, please.”
a play
within a play—
ars poetica