Green Linden Press

Cutting Up Apples 

at my counter, I see your shadow rummaging
through the leaves of my yard, rattle up the junk 

inside my garage, sunglasses aglint, mirrors 
as mask, but I will not go out to meet you. 

I see the dog I used to take to the vet looking 
ratty and stupidly curious as he noses the yard 

once his. I look out a window into a window.   
I am behind a face as you are behind a face. 

Why did we even bother over those years 
to send smoke signals from those cigarettes 

atilt at the edges of our mouths? Now you are
a box of garbage. A box of tinder to tempt 

a flame inside the garage that is a garbage 
museum of sorts in which you sort through 

your belongings in the dark. You do not think 
to lift the door of the garage so you may see 

better because this is not how you see. You 
do not want to see. You would rather bump 

your shin, your knee into the dusty kayaks, 
the coffee table gnawed by fingers and dogs 

that you’ve claimed with unctuous sentiment 
has been with you through the years as though 

a table can be loyal. I feel you reach through 
the gloom, root for the fabrics of solids with 

dull fingers. I stare out this window behind 
locks longing to reach to the dog I walked 

daily, whose paw I bandaged and watched 
for months so a small cut between the pads 

would not reopen, bleed along the floors 
of the house. You always let the bandage fall 

off.  You did not notice when this dog began, 
again, to chew at the raw, the rust of his paw. 

The stitch would open, a tiny tear, a bit
right between his toes ready to open, 

turn him into a scheme of blood. Cutting 
up an apple behind my locked door, I see 

my old friend in his sad coat poking about. 
I see the dog I love. I refuse to come out.