|
Amy
Kesegich
Far more is going on in Kesegich's
"The Apple Orchard" than meets the eye. In this
deceptively simple and beautiful lyric, Kesegich reinvents a crucial
moment between father and daughter. As she does, she reclaims Frost's
"Apple Picking" in a new space.
THE APPLE ORCHARD
My father drove until he lost himself,
but then he found an orchard with a sign
that said, "Pick your own apples," so we did.
I was a girl who grabbed the branches hard
and pulled myself up high as I was brave.
The bark was rough but my hands loved
the small scrapes wood carved into them.
I filled my apple basket to the rim,
no other children there to sneer at me,
the tomboy wearing denim overalls.
With braces on my teeth, I could not eat
the apples there, but rubbed them on my shirt
until they shined like chrome and I could cut
them with a knife when we got home that night.
For years, my father tried to find that place
again and I have kept the search up, too.
It seemed the little orchard disappeared
except in dreams where I can climb those trees.
Amy
Kesegich's poems have been selected
as third place winners for the annual Whiskey Island Poetry &
Fiction Contest, 2001. She has a chapbook, Spare Change, published by
Bits Press, Cleveland, Ohio, 1991. Her poem,"Mrs. Bradley's
Dilemma" was included in the textbook, Writing Poems, edited by
Robert Wallace, HarperCollins, 1991. She has a Ph.D. in English from
Case Western Reserve University. She teaches in the English department
at Notre Dame College of Ohio. She lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio,
with her husband, Ken, and their two children, John and Emily.
|
Back
Home
Next
|