Fall Ritual

No shade of waxy red
or soft white mealy flesh;
nothing simple—as what tempted Eve.
I crave a rarer kind:
small and bitter and hard to get—
not crab, neither gala, nor golden
but those of wild occasion:
musky ones in bloom of spring
or cool as autumn dew;
those that rise and fall the swallow,
not duds fell to the ground.
Seething with speech to defy the tree,
I want the fruit with singing taste,
grown in the throats of men.


Apples, by Dante Micheaux


...but mostly I just like apple picking with my wife.