If me and you owned a crab apple orchard.

When I asked if we could grow 
an apple tree my father said that 
crab apples don't taste very good--
He said I'd get sick if I tried them--
So I smashed crab apples like
daddy long leggers or 
coffee beans or blue berries under
my black canvas shoes in the driveway
of my aunt's house.
It was September but only 
in the wind chimes.

I don't think anyone ever really tried 
to appreciate crab apples though--
Not like I would.

You'd tell me that apple trees take years
while I'd get on all four and dip
each seed into the ground like
stitches in a quilt held together
with dental floss-- each push
of earth and soil and warmth like
oatmeal with dried apple on your toes
-- like pink gums in the bathroom mirror
after midnight was a regret
when even your teeth want to sleep-- 

For my orchard I would buy enough acres to hold the 
moon if it decided to land-- Crab apples
need room to scurry and discover
and feel and taste the earth
where their delicious red and gold
brothers rotted and turned 
to cider in the soil-- need 
room to breathe and gasp and
taste summer with their stems.
They need to learn what
caramel is from the whispers
of aging bees.

I would tell you when
harvest is coming. I will tell you
when we will start making cider to dip our
ginger snaps and apple pie as
warm as soil
to melt vanilla ice cream on. 

You will play along even though
you don't believe in crab apples
because you believe in me
and you believe in the moon.

You'll ask me how many crab apples
it takes to fill a pie crust
and how many crab apples 
it would take to fill the moon
if it decided to land in our orchard.

We'll pass the afternoons
making of games of hide and seek
between the thin trunks
of the trees that somehow
grew as tall as lamp posts
since late June when I planted them.

You'll tell me how the crab
apples likes me. How they miss
me at night when I sleep away
from them.
We'll take out sleeping bags 
to keep them company when the nights
start to make the soil shiver
and the wind chimes sound more
like bones that teeth.
We'll read them bed time stories
and tell them about the moon.
And you'll still only 
believe in me and quilts and
the persistence of Autumn.

Crab apple harvest happens
over night. In the full of the moon.
In the company of sleeping bags--
bodies entangled like roots.
Emerged in the frost melted froth 
of morning--

You would pick one apple
on the ground next to us.
It would be somehow the size of the moon
and sitting in your hand.
You'd ask what had
become of the timid stars we had known.
I would say that they becamse an orchard.
 
You would tell me that you
still didn't believe in crab apples
but that tonight we could make
cider to dip our ginger snaps into
and apple pie to melt vanilla ice cream
if I still wanted to teach
a non believer how to make
moons out of crab apples.