October 2023

Everything is gold and brown and lovely. I’ve been trying to tell you. 

The girl’s been out losing arrows in the field, but I’ve been stuck. It’s a lie that I stand still, I’ve been moving slowly, taking one forward step for all the time you’ve known  me. Except in October. In October I’m sitting. Sat. Chin up, watching the leaves jump. 

You cannot blink. Everything is gold and brown and lovely. 

The girl is up late making dolls go to war with stick shields and swords. But I’ve bargained for more moonlight, so I don’t miss the shy ones who sneak off in the night. 

They’re gold and brown, and lovely. I don’t ever wish for hands, except for right now. But hands wouldn’t be enough. I’d then need arms to hold them, too. I’d need a chest to hold them against. And a neck to bend down. And lips to brush against their forehead. And they would need a forehead. 

We are not bodies made to love each other. But we do. We do. The leaves and I. How else do you explain the magic that is them dancing before me. How then do you explain the light spilling out from everywhere to swim through us? 

I love them. Even without hands, I’ll show you, my gutters are full of them. Like when the girl picked her grandpa’s early oranges, made a basket of her shirt and picked and picked the hard green fruit until she was overflowing. I’m clumsy with how much I love them. Earnest. Young. 

It’s not an easy thing to make me feel young, to make me blush. The girl gives us space. She looks away. She’s tearing pages from her books again, building dollhouses, humming. He’s got the whole world in his hands. So the leaves and I love each other almost unchaperoned. 

Them jumping and me still. The whole world. No hands.

Lovely, 

the apple house