Apples. I’m exhausted. The tip of each of my fingers is faintly red and smell of apples. The blood runs like cider in my veins. In my ears, the sound of fruit swelling on the branches.
We both remember when these trees were young, the breeze slipping water-like through the branches, the fruit green and tart, the soil soft. The ground is hard for sitting now, tatters of clouds and fog get tangled in the trees throwing fruit to the ground to brown and wither, cider apples. Even the fruit still clinging to the trees is changed — sweet but temperamental, browning if you speak too loudly, souring in a north wind. You have to pick quickly now, on the right day, the right hour.
If crows fly low over the October orchards, their shadows stain the apples dark.
— Jeff Rennicke (all photography by the author unless otherwise noted)a
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