As a loose-limbed youth, he’d sprawl across my tender branches and carve his name into my slender trunk until my blossom would spiral, confetti-white, to the earth.
Look at me, I’d whisper but he was too busy flirting with the breeze.
For years he deserted me, left me to broaden and mature alone. When he returned he was half-blinded by brazen sunlight and obsessed with gaudy rainbows but this time, as bees lurched from fruit to swollen fruit, I knew exactly how to attract his attention.
Look at me, I whispered, ripe and ready, and let an apple fall. Thud.
—Originally published at Retreat West
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