APPLE CAKE

Today I baked an apple cake

three apples firm, not bruised.

New crop apples,

you would have said,

best for eating out-of-hand

but all I had in stock

It is the dice of apples

that makes the cake;

too small and applesauce,

too large and teeth break.

You supervise even now

your admonishments louder

than the radio’s bray.

Flour sifts, ghost veils

brown sugar churns

with butter, nuts cracked

chopped for adding later.

For crunch, you said,

bones of the cake.

Collected, the cake settles

into its greased glass pan,

baked until the apples soften.

Baking apple cake reminds me

of mountain afternoons

walking through sweet hay

fields to orchards, fallow

now, and frost-bitten,

wizened apples hung

still in cider-spiked air.

We carted our rare prizes

in brown burlap, bundled

in your lap, by your feet.

The truck bounced down

the rocky hillside, you laughed.

Later, with apple ache

rounding our bellies

I cut into the cake

still warm, vanilla ice cream

puddled on our plates.

***
Prompt=love poem. Peace...