Apple Thieves

In his dishevelled garden my neighbour 

Has fourteen varieties of apples,

Fourteen trees his wife put in as seedlings 

Because, being sick, she wanted something 

Different to do (different from being sick). 

In winter she ordered catalogues, pored 

Over subtleties of mouth-feel and touch: 

Tart and sweet and crisp; waxy, smooth

And rough. Spring planted an orchard, 

Spring projected summers 

Of green and yellow-streaked, orange, red,

Rusty, round, worm-holed, lopsided;

Nothing supermarket flawless, nothing imperishable.

Gardens grow backwards and forwards

In the mind; in the driest season, flowers.

Of the original fourteen trees, five 

Grow street-side, outside the fence.

To their branches my neighbour, a retired 

Accountant, has clothes-pegged 

Slips of paper, white pocket handkerchiefs

Embroidered with the words:

The apples are not ripe, please don’t pick them.

Kids had an apple fight last week.

In September, when the apples ripen, 

Passersby are welcome to pick them, even 

Those rare Black Diamonds that overflow

The wall. Sure, I may gather the windfalls.

Mostly it’s squirrels that toss them down. 

Squirrels are wasteful. Squirrels don’t read

Messages a widower posts in trees.