frozen bananas 

the neighbors have an apple tree 
that they let drop its fruit each year.
never once have i seen
them eat from it. 
i watch, knowing they would
never let me cross their field to pick
the fruit up off the ground.
lawn mower afternoon. the gossip
of the foxes. 
instead of apples, i keep my bowl of bananas
like haphazard grins. the kind of smile
you put on when you need
to lean your chair back into a bowl of sugar.
when you know that bananas 
are little death fruit. 
i never want to waste them.
instead, i freeze the bananas when
they're close being too far gone.
this is what my mother did too.
always a little school of frozen bananas
waiting for us to make a frostbite bread 
& take out their guts. unlike her,
i never get around to using them. 
i keep the brown bananas like 
spare mouths. sealed shut. sometimes 
i look at the apple tree & wonder if
a great gust of wind 
would shake the branches enough
to make one fist roll to me.
i would take that apple & make it 
my son. plant the seeds & stand there
until a tree grew.
sometimes i beg my partner 
to let me try & grow a banana tree.
he says, "we live in pennsylvania?"
as if that is a reason to stop.
my secret i keep from him
is that i already buried a banana once.
no tree grew but still if you put
your ear to the dirt you can hear 
soft laughter & sometimes 
a gun going off. the echo. 
the following quiet. 
the apple tree weeping.