Fall Apple

She's waiting under the apple tree that drops its blossoms in September. Every year, same story; I show up, she's got her back pressed into the trunk. I wonder how a tree can wait so long to bloom and usually she's silent. This year she opens her hand and offers me a tiny apple, cut in half, pink flesh pulsing like a traffic light. "You thought about not coming." she says, no judgement, just fact. I say nothing, but my hands are slick in my pockets.

"You might have missed this." she proclaims and drops it into my mouth which hangs open, forgotten, like every reason I dream up to cease my yearly pilgrimage.