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November's Poem

Joseph Meredith

The Color of Apples

“What color is the apple?” my father asks.
We’re sitting on the porch of the old house
On Cheltenham Avenue, listening
For nighthawks in the thickening dusk.
“Red,” I say. He holds up the apple to me,
Not satisfied with my answer.
I am eight. It is July in the 50’s
And already leaves are blowing down
To the ivy at our end of the block
From Gaughan’s sycamore up the street.
“Look again,” he says, “is it red
Like a cop car?” Clearly it is not.
It’s as black as red, as though
It drank in night as well as day.
And over it spread tiny white spots
Like stars. It is darker toward the blossom end
That pressed against the night.
I can feel my Crayola world
Of eight colors start to melt and run.

That first close looking has led me here,
Finding words for things that have no words—
The crimson star map of the apple’s skin;
The river valleys of the ivy leaf;
The weight of loss in the gut—
Listening for nighthawks in my fifties.

October's Poem

Leonard Gontarek
gontarekl@aol.com
215-386-7171

Home

You are crying for something in the past.
Fair enough. Your mother is dead here.
A praying mantis eats through a leaf.
They've changed over the streetlights
to the safer, apricot-hazed ones.
Bang your fist on my heart if you understand.
Raunchy, whispering ghost, one streetlight on earth, out.
The maples & moving clouds go from silver
to a shade of silver. Leaves rust, a car starts up.
Some humans xerox their hands. How mysterious the pictures.
Your neighbor rakes the sidewalk. Gentle strokes, long past autumn. Fair enough.