The Apple Parable
Sharon Kennedy-Nolle

When I said, “Throw one out for the deer,”
your younger brother chucked
not the rotting ones on the counter
but the small blushed Cortland beauty
last left in the crisper
from apple picking with you—

Small miracle we’d gotten you to go at all
but once there,
you put your back into it,
bag after bag
beyond the quota we’d paid for;

It should have seen us through winter,
but things spoiled.

So when this last good one got tossed,
I had to go out looking in the dark,
among the tired pachysandra,
and the playground slush.

Never found it,

Small, clutched synecdoche
for your frost-shortened life.

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