Windfall Apples
© 2015 by Ellin Anderson

Summer makes apples, then the tree lets fall
Ripe gaudy pippins, striped with blood and gold.
Thus shaken, every luscious garnet ball
Learns all too late that August can be cold,

That crawling wasps find empires on the ground
(Those jeweled explorers don’t mind rottenness),
And, munching what the night rains haven’t drowned,
The tipsy bears enjoy a cider-press.

I race by, glancing at my calendar,
And smell the apples, thinking how I, too,
My vanity all turned to vinegar,
Wax and grow ripe, no matter what I do —

Oh, windfall apples that night’s lips will touch,
Rot and be gone, you frighten us too much.

© 2015 by Ellin Anderson. All rights reserved. No part of  this work may be copied or used in any way without written  permission from the author.