Amber Rose Crowtree

Autumn Syndrome

 

Iodized-yellow cysts,

determined to fall,

bob in today’s charcoal air

off the arms of two elderly trees.

 

Doomed to become pabulum,

the piebald crab apples will feed

deer, birds, ants earth,

maybe you or me.

 

The older the apple,

the sweeter its innards be.

newborns are bitter crabs

until they bruise sweet decay.

 

Humans are the opposite of apples.

 

Newborn, we are candied only

to slowly dissolve into bitter bald crabs,

as aged autumns would have us.

 

Our bruises are never sweet.

 

 

​​

by Amber Rose Crowtree

First published in North American Review

and chapbook, The Inviolable Hours