Member-only story
Adam and the Apple Tree
Poetry
There was no apple tree in our garden
Just the occasional gear box,
Rusting chassis, exhaust pipe, the usual urban detritus.
These objects still exist inside my head.
There was a brick wall with crumbling mortar
Where birds nested, spiders rested and wild flowers grew.
I had to touch every third brick
Otherwise zombie-ghosts of coy mothers would put me in the zoo.
The top field contained horses and rhubarb,
Now there are just houses and cars
I can hardly believe that very occasionally a travelling circus would set up there.
I prayed my dad would fall off his bike and never come home.
Scrubbed fingers, sore in cold water with roughpads,
Wet westerly winds in winter,
Stripped out the sweaty sky
Boredom lay heavy on the younger-I, especially on Sunday
A fully-grown man shouted and swore inside our house,
Us kids didn’t know what to do:
“Why the hell don’t you grow up?”
I was the eldest. Where to grow up? How to grow up? Why?
