Echoes in the Apple Tree

concrete and bricks are
the dividing land
as once
glaciers seeped into ripe
savannahs and further
down Earth’s lips we danced
on deserted beaches
and danced on deserted beaches
until we dissolved
the mad night
to conceive
conceive
conceive
ourselves into civilizations

concrete and bricks are
the dividing line
between our skins
and the skins of trees
savages on the dropping
rolled horizon
and the skins of each
mortar and clay crucifix
stolid border for rutted Gordian roads

I remember musty
cigarette smoke and coffee musk
crept to the cracks by kitchen
windows and words
curled through languid air
to cut into
the sound of jazz
and rock
and blues

one bass line became
the ticking clock
the creaking chairs
the shuffled glasses
the empty bottles
the sound of opening
and closing doors
the feel of bodies pushed
by air against the air
of frail realities

tonight street light sings to the apple tree
and a single apple hangs
from Indian ink skin
as though it’s smiling
beckoning
dancing
an erotic apple dance
to a swollen bass line

dancing and beckoning
with moves
it learned under the moon
on an advancing beach

and Indian ink skin covers
the reaching arms
the beseeching arms
the toxic torso
the ice which is a serpent’s ice
the eye which stares
blindly like serpent’s
eyes and the need
which drives us
like and is the tide
reaching even though
we chant the chant
of ignorant and crumbling rocks

not again
not again
not again