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For Jay

o.o alright, here it is Jay

I approach the horizon

Morning fog still lingers in the valley,
Crushed velvet, orange, and matte lemon -
the citrus of a Catskill Fall -
squeezed between the evergreens and
last stubborn hardwoods

I look down from the mountaintop,
the knot between two, twenty, two-thousand worlds -
The caustic city lights
leaves drying beneath the mist
like a painter's palette

I jump to reach an apple still on the tree,
imagining the taste of its dusty skin,
I offer you a bite, though you're elsewhere by now,
I bite, then throw the apple,
Watch it fly like a hummingibrd
disappearing into the treetop threshold

This time of year
I remember my grandmother with
time lines drawn deeply like gouges
on a face who played
in the black and white photos of the 20's
Drawn grey-
beside the citrus hills

Seventy years
brings about the slow wilting of skin,
(The truth of flesh is that without it, we're all ugly)
may bring a blue, cloudy cataract.
How eventual.

The age of loneliness is seasonal -
Apple blossoms, they come and go