the bench beneath the apple tree

has collapsed like my

grandmother’s lungs

but the tree still gives fruit and she

still makes dinner folds

clothes

 

see when a tree dies it does

so slowly piece by piece until

the dead weight is too much it

 

starts

from the inside

 

my grandmother doesn’t smoke

three packs a day

anymore but her breath

sounds like the rustle of

dead leaves her cough

like branches snapping

 

a limb from the apple tree

has collapsed like my

grandfather’s legs

but the tree still gives fruit the

light in his barn is always on

 

he is auctioning off the last

of the cars he built buying

a handicap van he

 

sits down next to me on

the new bench

and as my grandmother

makes her way toward us

and the the limbs hang heavy

above us he smiles and says

I did good, kid.  I did good.