Marie Gauthier

Thursday night we begin a new season of the Collected Poets Series with the phenomenal Carol Frost and Michael Waters. For more information, directions, and a glimpse of the upcoming schedule, visit the new website!

I’ve lent all my Carol Frost books out, but here’s a timely poem from Michael Waters’ collection, Parthenopi: New and Selected Poems (BOA 2001):

Apples

I was the clumsy child
who stole apples
from your favorite tree
to toss them into the lake.

I have no excuse, but
those apples were never lost.
Each night, while you slept,
as apples bobbed in moonlight,

I waited in shallow water
until the apples washed ashore.
Each night I gave you an apple.
Sometimes I remember that desire

to take whatever belongs to you
so I can return it.
Now, on windless nights,
when the lake lies still,

I have another dream:
I gather you in my arms,
after death, and ease you
like a basketful of apples

into the moonlit water,
and we float home,
with an awkward grace,
to a continent dark with apples.