Under haystacks, an apple orchard
nearby, under the silence of clouds
lingering overhead, before age
and knowing limited us in the cellars
of despair or desire, when a dream
was clear water we could enter,
or that entered us,
a fresh apple, its skin
saran-wrap tight and cool against
a cheek, a table at dinner covered
with a cotton cloth, a cup of milk
drunk slowly after a day soaked
in the smell of sun-drenched hay,
feeling nothing
but the curve of the earth under our backs.

Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 16, Issue 4.