PRESSING APPLES

hello she says
I’m just going for a quick run
my creaky body

a kiss on both cheeks
wet leaves and beech mast
in the hotel foyer

what is it with spiders?
their webs
my height

twenty big men
in black T-shirts
world experts

pressing apples
“it’s not natural” she says
“freezing your eggs”

the library
a white van
full of Cornish pasties

one kind of luck
or another
crows in a tree

odd thoughts and socks
suddenly make sense

ash leaves turn yellow first
and stay on the tree

pregnant again
Marta tells of
her cravings
sending her husband out
for red apples

a late bee
lands on an ivy flower

brown oak leaves
in still flowering borage

the mould
on an English walnut
can kill you

medlars on a branch
their astringency

under the ginkgo
l look up through yellow fans
satisfying snaps
as they come off the branch
china in my head

leaf veins
red on green
sycamore

the leaves
I collected for tomorrow
breathe in their bags

squirrelled memories
losing myself
in a walnut whip

crossing
the brave new alps
humans and nature

precarious workplaces

before the lecture
a few crisps and a wine
to soften us up

wondering why there
are more men at the lecture
than on the walk

touching the iceberg
just what’s going on
below the surface?

the arts council
doesn’t seem relevant
falling leaves

abundance
what’s the exchange rate
for apples?

somewhere
over bat alley hedge
the sound of a strimmer

calling
the wrong number
magic mushrooms

just one gull
on the quiditch pitch
long shadows

security barrier
she picks a small
but very red apple

refinding my health
and efficiency garden
weeds and geraniums

raking leaves
we discus the flight
of sycamore seeds

glorious gluts
jars of this and that chutney
all round the house

he tells me he’s changed
his pink shoes to stop then
getting them dirty

the midwife
of the orchard
156 fruit trees

asked to play
his accordion
he says it’s not
his accordion
the tune the tune

entry points
the nervousness of an edge
planted with love

a campus
that just keeps growing
how long does a fruit tree live?

not the kind of thing
you can pick up from a book
poisonous mushroom

200 instruments
from all over the world
and a yurt

footballs crashing
against a metal fence
sweet chestnuts

her dog sits patiently
through the artist’s talk
cross pollination

the pump and tap
the rum runner
a railway arch

wait don’t brush
she ain’t heavy
she’s my spider

Paul Conneally
Fruit Routes Poet
October 2018