photo credit: Ken Ichi-Ueda
Kierstin Bridger
Cider Portrait
We forget how much we resemble trees—
metatarsal bones like tap roots,
Cider Portrait
We forget how much we resemble trees—
metatarsal bones like tap roots,
our soft shoes soaking in the jazz,
quiet between counts. The shock
of our hair, our reason, music in the blood,
all surge dendritic and wind-hungry.
We’re an orchard full of hard amber buzz.
Click your tongue, can you taste it?
Say nothing about those arms, or do—
one Braeburn, one Gala,
sweet-sharp, gnarled, and stem-clung,
gravity opposed, rung with pear-drop notes.