Your half eaten apple lies
rotten—
a mutilated carcass—
in our yellow fruit bowl.
I can’t throw it out,
this oxygen-infested fruit,
because you still breathe
within it.

And I haven’t picked the fruits
like you’ve asked me;
your sun-burn
apples and oranges still hang limply
from their branches in our yard;
waiting…
as I wait,
for your hands.

Eighty-seven fruits
still breathing,
still living,
though you’re gone.

The trees outside have shed
ninety-four leaves today.
Inside my head,
countless summers
have collapsed
upon one another—yet I am still here,
still breathing—

since this afternoon
when I laid your body
among the roots of those fruit trees,
and kissed your smile good-bye.

The earth, and all her warm sorrows,
she gets to hold you now.
And I am still here,

still emptied,
still breathing,
still living
though you’re gone…

~ by Samantha Lê

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First published in Corridors

Copyright © 2001 by ​Samantha Lê
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