A kind of a Bible story

Few trees have roots as deep as this
Lebanese cedar. Lean, stringy,
they sink as much as a trunk's height
into the soil, resist rot, hold moisture.
The top attracts light and more cedar.

A man walks by, call him Jay. 
Jay has roots, too.
"Friendship" and "family"
are the names of Jay's roots.
They surround him like a Nazarite's hair.

Jay is going slow today. Up this hill
there's a woman with designs on him,
his roots. She's a foreigner. She means
to turn his strength into gold.

The wind starts to blow and the roots thirst,
Jay slows even more.

He has to wonder
why he's going, and how he'll answer,
and what he'll do

because when he gets there,
it's apples.



Jump-Rope

Sunlight and coffee cause headaches 
so Jay shuts his eyes, sips slowly 
and waits for the reader. 
A blonde, he hopes. The last, a redhead, 
opened the blinds; birds came to watch.
Her hand, touching his knee, the trail
of her index, from thigh to page, through lips

back to the page. As if she didn't know 
the blindfold had holes.

Most of all in the afternoons.
A girl jumps rope, right by the window 
where Jay sits. The voice keeps reading 
about changed lives, the books changing, 
people coming, and some falling in love. 
A brunette, she speaks indecorously of apples, 
of great secrets she means to show. 

Jay sticks a fist in his lap; 
it shakes, angry, like an old man's. 



Hearing voices, he takes a trip

The female attendant in coveralls 
favors his Mother. 
She smiles. "Follow the trees." 

So Jay does, tipping her 
as he starts the car. A big, 
yellow Buick his Daddy left him.
Mud from somewhere, unsaid. 

Then he drives off. Follow the trees, 
Jay. Apples, he recalls. 
An ancestor of his planted apples 
along this route. Brown cores 
from sacks on his back. 
Carefully seed in straight rows. 

A Swedenborgian. 
An entrepreneur. And it's true, really, 
he wore pots on his head, 
holes in them. 
Pockets from being so full. 

Jay plugs in his laptop 
at the motel. Checks e-mail 
for the third time. "Error Decoding Body." 
Jay turns off the television.

He bangs his wife 
smelling of apples, his Mother. 
He showers with the new green soap. 



The Job at the Amusement Park

Jay's lucky.
Not everyone rafts under the stars.

The water's magical. Bluegreen 
from a tube labeled, 
"Night Descending on Orchard."
The air, chilled by A/C units,
hums. Fog 
from dry ice, vents in the floor. 

Sculptures.

Jay's favorite: 
a glass knife in a glass hand, 
the arm weirdly crooked, the arm 
jutting from a tree trunk 
simulated in marble. 

The brochures, dusty.
Conjuring museum visits.
Sheets canvas. Banks 
portraits the eyes travel.

Then slip coolly by.

Jay lies with the guests.
They follow the trees. 
Rome. Red Delicious. 
Souvenirs in the gift shop.

A nozzle blows mist on their cheeks.
Jay calls the ride, "September Market."



The apple that in time becomes a heart

"Stroke her face," he says, 
"stroke her face. I like to, when we make love."

Jay's praying, something he's not used to, 
and having a hard time. His god's 
past those hills he sees when he looks up, 
past the river. Jay's chosen this night 
to sleep outside and pray in the orchard.

He's praying for the farmer's widow—
the woman back there next to his spot in bed, 
still warm, worn out under the covers,
not yet dreaming. The widow's sons will be home 
tomorrow and they'll take care of her, Jay can move on.
This valley's filled with trees, and they need him.

And that's what he does.
But tonight, just for a little, Jay prays.
He prays for the dream he's had three nights 
running to end—the dream where he marries 
the widow and they start a family and this orchard.
Tomorrow his strong sons return, they lift him
and bury him here. It's their land, and no one minds.

But it's not to be. Another house needs him, 
not this one. So Jay prays. "Stroke her face…
I like to…stroke her face…" all night 
while the rare god listens. Until towards dawn 
the trees start when an upstairs window lights,

a few minutes later, the back door of the house opens.