Apple Season

By Siobhan Casey

The sun makes a nest
of joy inside my sternum,
never tired       of collecting
Granny Smiths and Galas
with a basket and a pitchfork.
A man appears as if from nowhere.
He calls my daughter 
the slur for her Chinese ancestors:

a short syllable and sound
       that makes a jagged
void in time.

She does not wince
at his word or his expression,
her eyes two Braeburns
born from winter.

It is too late to pour cups of quiet,
to cover her ears
with stones I collected from the coast.
Instead, I slip into the next row of branches
and hold her body close,
thrum-thrum
of breath, rush- rush of blood.

At home, she marvels
at a caterpillar on the move
and points to a faint circle
in the sky.           How comforting
           that day and night
           both contain the moon.

Later, she treads
water in her sleep. She is not pained
as she tosses in the crib.
She is the river and the doe.
She is the planter and the sower.

She is the orchard bathed in light.

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Siobhan Casey earned her MFA from Chatham University in 2011 where she worked as an editor for the Fourth River Literary Magazine. She is part of the “Write Beside” literary community and her most recent work can be found in Up The Staircase Quarterly, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Cathexis Northwest Press, and Weave Magazine. She is working on an inclusive education degree at Lesley University in Boston, MA where she loves chasing her dog and young daughter up and down the coastline.