Helen Ate Apples with Salt
Helen ate her red apple with salt,
a pinch from a glazed cellar before each bite,
What people in my country do, she said,
grains spiriting her lap.
Helen’s father piloted commercial planes,
moved her family across meridians
like Monarch butterflies. Helen’s fluent
speech ascended, descended, a brushed harp.
We sat on the polished pine floor
with sliced apples Helen’s mother
plated, then returned to her kitchen
as if keeping an urgent appointment.
I knew many mothers in kitchens,
women braided into spices
and cleaning fluids, oven heat
and flour; each task a large, flat stone
to cross some endless stream.
Helen’s younger siblings dashed
in and out like insects lost
in currents of white and light—
there, not there. Helen swatted
them away in her first language.
We’d sit all afternoon, walls bare,
shelves empty, windows uncovered,
Helen salting sliced apples,
asking me to close my eyes
and open my mouth.
a pinch from a glazed cellar before each bite,
What people in my country do, she said,
grains spiriting her lap.
Helen’s father piloted commercial planes,
moved her family across meridians
like Monarch butterflies. Helen’s fluent
speech ascended, descended, a brushed harp.
We sat on the polished pine floor
with sliced apples Helen’s mother
plated, then returned to her kitchen
as if keeping an urgent appointment.
I knew many mothers in kitchens,
women braided into spices
and cleaning fluids, oven heat
and flour; each task a large, flat stone
to cross some endless stream.
Helen’s younger siblings dashed
in and out like insects lost
in currents of white and light—
there, not there. Helen swatted
them away in her first language.
We’d sit all afternoon, walls bare,
shelves empty, windows uncovered,
Helen salting sliced apples,
asking me to close my eyes
and open my mouth.
Fall 2026
H.E. Fisher (she/they) is a poet, writer, editor, and instructor. H.E. is the author of the collection Sterile Field (Free Lines Press, 2022) and chapbook Jane Almost Always Smiles (Moonstone Arts Center Press, 2022), and is co-editor of The Big Brutal Act anthology (Small Harbor; forthcoming), and editor of (Re) An Ideas Journal. H.E.’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Denver Quarterly, Bellevue Literary Review, MER, Tupelo Quarterly, Whale Road Review, Pithead Chapel, and elsewhere. H.E. has received nominations for Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize, is a 2026 Saltonstall fellow, a 2025 Bethany Community Arts fellow, and a recipient of Poets Afloat and Stonecrop Gardens residencies. H.E. has received grants from Rockland Council for the Arts and ArtsWestchester. H.E. currently lives in the Hudson River Valley.
Art: L. I. Henley
“Scorpio Girl: After Rebecca Hart Olander's Singing from the Deep End,” 2026
Colored pencil, acrylic, notebook paper, found The Jesus and Mary Chain album art
“Scorpio Girl: After Rebecca Hart Olander's Singing from the Deep End,” 2026
Colored pencil, acrylic, notebook paper, found The Jesus and Mary Chain album art