Apple Tree

Erica Funkhouser

Well into its life, this spring
the apple tree divides into the half
that could pass as driftwood
and the blossoming half
whose wide, impulsive white
parachutes above the grass.

The flowers hold an apple in their future,
red or green, a certainty to aim for
amid the perfumed distractions.
At the back door, a woodpecker
insists on its meal.

The petals pass through the gate
of darkness, fall far from the tree.
The parent calls out, "I'm right here."
The child thinks, "Nowhere to be seen."

Bent as if to search for echoes
in the ground-flowering,
the hollow branches cast
narrow and narrower shadows.

When I walk by with my small daughter
she will not let our bodies touch
or "We'll look like two sides of one thing
instead of two things."