STEFEN HOLTREY

QUICKENING

An apple tree we didn’t know was an apple tree
until half the family was half-dead and
the other half was learning what that meant.
No apples for twenty years and one day:
apples. As if nature was just some preamble.
We had cats then, I remember that much, they
wiped their faces on flowers. One would wait
in the tree among the higher blossoms.
Still some discordance at least
when everything now is decided. It was just a tree.
That cat would slaughter hummingbirds.