Halloween we came here 

Only a sink and our garden furniture 

And the dead aul one's ugly carpet

Out the back was all grass, stale 

And the gnarled bark of the apple trees

I was normally so deft but 

The twisted fingers wouldn't budge for me

Interlocked like in prayer 

Aching like prayer 

I fought fraught the snag and snap of trembling limbs

Finally perched in their palms, 

The apples tumbling to mud the ground with thuds

Spilling like teeth from a mouth 

Their wrinkled brown crushed beneath my nikes

Dripping rot everywhere. Stomp.

Nancy's house was stitched with creaks 

And the tramples of feet

And her letters kept arriving, somehow 

Stuffed behind the key bowl

We tore up her tacky rug 

Ran across her floorboard ribs 

Slammed the door. Shook the birds. 

Grabbed the hurls and harvested-

Breaking old blood against a concrete wall

And letting the seeds fall.