For Iduna
I picked apples every fall – Pick Your Own,
My little plastic bag and the autumn sky.
Two years I went with my lover,
The third year he was away chasing dreams,
And I stood beneath the autumn sky
With my little plastic bag and three apples
And I cried for dreams I couldn’t follow.
A wisp of wind curled itself through the branches
And she was there, smiling, bright-eyed,
The leaf that brushed my face was kind.
They’ll go, she said, but if it is true
They will always come back. And if they don’t
You’ll make a pie of these apples
And share it with your friends,
Who you put away in order to be with him.
I bit the apple, thinking of wicked stepmothers
As unlike her as it was possible to be.
Two years later I made a pie
And found out what friendship really meant.
It is knowing that no matter how many worms
Have made their way through the thin skin,
There is always sweetness at the core.