Apple Tree

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."