Summer Apples
Cathryn Essinger


I planted an apple tree in memory 
of my mother, who is not gone,

but whose memory has become 
so transparent that she remembers

slicing apples with her grandmother
(yellow apples; blue bowl) better than

the fruit that I hand her today. Still,
she polishes the surface with her thumb,

holds it to the light and says with no
hesitation, Oh, Yellow Transparent...

they're so fragile, you can almost see
to the core. She no longer remembers how

to roll the crust, sweeten the sauce, but
her desire is clear—it is pie that she wants.

And so, I slice as close as I dare to the core—
to that little cathedral of memory— where

the seeds remember everything they need
to know to become yellow and transparent.