The Apple-Eater by Linda Curtis Meyers
I think the final image in this poem is lovely.
The Apple-Eater
By Linda Curtis Meyers
(for my mother)
My sister and I used to tease her
about the apple cores.
Away at school,
we thought our rooms
should remain empty—
the sunlight alone on the bed,
dust particles hovering
in warm air. Somewhere
in the recesses of her day—
the cleaning done, dinner
a distant thought—she’d open
one of our doors, an apple
in one hand, a book
in the other. I don’t know how
she chose the room. Perhaps
she followed the sun’s movement
across the house, as it visited
each room with an hour of intensity.
I see her against a pillow, hear
the snap of apple skin, the soft flutter
of pages. While we were gone
she read all of Fitzgerald and Hemingway,
most of Faulkner. I’d come home
to a slightly rumpled bed,
one browning core
on the headboard. Even then,
I knew she was not
inconsiderate. She’d left
in a rush to make dinner, the characters
still talking, the apple
eaten down to the seeds,
stem, the slenderest
of cores.
