Apple Picking

Apple-picking

DS Maolalai

and I watch her as she picks around the room, gathering things very deliberately from their fallen places like apple-picking in late October -

pants come away from the over my shoes and her blouse is hanging on the mantel like the end of a sex scene in a bad movie and last night that’s what it was,

but sober now she moves around, uncomfortable as a horse crossing water or someone dodging dogshit in an unfamiliar garden -

boxes of half-eaten pizza and scattered beer bottles surround.

I am naked and comfortable under the covers, warm but not thirsty, stretched like a cat at a table leg, half dozed, watching her look for her earrings knowing that she wants to leave and knowing that I don’t want to stop her even though we both were so comfortable last night and so carefully fitted together, the way a blackbird tucks away its wings on landing and flicks its head about.

putting her shoes on she smiles at me, and shows her eyes, blackbird shy and sweet as found apples.