The Crabapple

Only one remains
held
halfway up
by one
of the scraggly branches

The fruit is old
brown
age spots cover
the wrinkled skin
The last
one
shriveled
hanging on
– frozen
to all it has ever known
unable to release
to abandon its branch
even though the others
fell
long ago
Caught between
all it has ever known
and –

the snow catches
in the crevasse
of each wrinkle.

 

Published in From the Soil: A Hometown Anthology
Exeter Publishing, Dec 2020

Re-published in Whispering Willow: Tree Poems Anthology, June 2022