A Rake's Progress
My apple tree has a lascivious name. To see this you have to hear it.
This probably has more to do with my ear, than anything else. Cox. Cox’s Pippin. If you shop at Sainsbury’s you’re used to seeing it written. Did you ever think of it like this? The real OG of apple trees, this tree sprouted when I was pregnant with my first child. He of the chubby legs and ringlets. A Shirley Temple baby. I married his father in front the tree, a limpid sapling then. Last year I decided, that I could prune it. Save money, show my prowess. I had a walloping go. It bore fruit boy did it ever. You never saw an apple tree so full of crummy apples. Small and tight, apples that sprouted 8 to each slim branch. The branches themselves abundant fingers of hands. Within their interiors all, traipsing from apple to apple, coddled worms.
The best genre I’ve ever tasted, Cox are meant to be large and hard, unmarred. Branch after branch cracking under strain must be lopped, for fear of rot.
The ground under my feet still lecherous with fermenting apples, a dirtier scent than the cider house, emboldened by green mold and rotting leaves. I wear my space age shoes. Soak the soles in a washing tub, run cleaning brushes made for straws through the holes in the sides: some shoes are for the well worn path alone.
Does she learn her lesson, she of the DIY walloping go? Possibly not. Instead turns she to sails, shoots, cuts, seasons proper husbandry. Aloft the tree once more, surrounded. Within a thicket-obscured view, a tender cut is made. And then another. The second hidden by the first, she fails to see she’s cut too low. Too late, an open wound, beckoning fungus; if left as is, a half-cocked crevice. Don’t stop now! She hems and haws. Hacks.
Apple tree wood is surprisingly hard. Unseen, the hours pass, scalp-stuck with fresh sawdust, twigs and leafy life.
I cut hair as well.
Curly hair is more forgiving than an apple tree. During the pandemic, my family: heads held high atop-their-faces-masked. These men that I groom bless them! those who laugh at my pruning, but omit to look at back of their heads.
“You never saw an apple tree so full of crummy apples.” — hehe. This was a fun one SJ. It had your usual depth, but I detected a hint of levity as well. I enjoyed it :)
In the fall, in Washington state, you can go to grocery stores and sees dozens of different apples, piled up in wicker baskets but no Cox Pippen. However, you can buy Pumpkin beer. Nice to see your stories again, thank you.