Apple Picking
In the photo my mother stands among branches
in the orchard, holding an exquisite ripe globe,
in front of her chest. She squints into sharp sunlight,
eager to tell me, behind the camera, the importance
of where on the tree to find the best, which to leave,
how to twist each apple upward for a clean stem snap.
She is eighty-nine at the time, vigorous, a halo
of white hair, in lipstick and a striped sweater set.
Her sit-down walker is off between trees, out of view,
tilted on the uneven ground as though she leapt up
out of it, tossed it aside. I want to say she looks like
an aged Eve in Paradise, but my mind harkens
instead to a summer in Lecce, the heel of Italy’s boot,
to all those baroque churches covered in carved
stone vegetables and pomegranates, birds and putti,
where painted wooden saints rush from their niches,
polychrome in fervid blues, browns, reds.
Those saints! How I loved them. How they strode forth,
each holding in its hand its own pierced red heart,
in panic or offering or love,
each heart astonished, ablaze in gold-leaf flames.
in the orchard, holding an exquisite ripe globe,
in front of her chest. She squints into sharp sunlight,
eager to tell me, behind the camera, the importance
of where on the tree to find the best, which to leave,
how to twist each apple upward for a clean stem snap.
She is eighty-nine at the time, vigorous, a halo
of white hair, in lipstick and a striped sweater set.
Her sit-down walker is off between trees, out of view,
tilted on the uneven ground as though she leapt up
out of it, tossed it aside. I want to say she looks like
an aged Eve in Paradise, but my mind harkens
instead to a summer in Lecce, the heel of Italy’s boot,
to all those baroque churches covered in carved
stone vegetables and pomegranates, birds and putti,
where painted wooden saints rush from their niches,
polychrome in fervid blues, browns, reds.
Those saints! How I loved them. How they strode forth,
each holding in its hand its own pierced red heart,
in panic or offering or love,
each heart astonished, ablaze in gold-leaf flames.
Veronica Kornberg (she/her) is a poet from Northern California. Recipient of the Morton Marcus Poetry Prize, her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Beloit Poetry Journal, Indiana Review, Salamander, New Ohio Review, Menacing Hedge, The Shore, Spillway, The Night Heron Barks, and Tar River Poetry. She is a Peer Reviewer for Whale Road Review and is currently at work on her first book.
Art: Nheyob, Creative Commons