Ordinary

An entirely ordinary child is sitting in a chair
Right knee propped against the seat
Left knee supporting a hardcover book
the book is about zombies, or possibly zebras
zombie zebras
Anyhow, the child is engrossed

I have warned my (ordinary) children that
someday I will look at them
and I’ll rupture from the sheer weight of my love like
when a water tank collapses and runoff blooms a garden
or a sack of corn breaks open and then birds feast
That’s how my heart will tear

I suppose, though, that heart
It’s already shattered
I’ve been smashed free for eleven years
Burst by love
Jammed open wide
Damaged and huge and afraid and abundant

Roots, or the persistence of fruit trees

My hometown was in apple country
Hills around the city full of orchards
Stores full of apples with local names
names like: empire, northern spy, cortland

When I left that city
I didn’t know I’d never see
those names anywhere else
(red delicious, golden delicious, macintosh, blech)

Decades later I moved to the home of apples
Up in the mountains, Alma Ata
Father of apples
The mountains full of old trees

Apples so old they had no names
Just colors:
Red apples, yellow apples, green apples
Small soft apples, small hard apples

You can’t compare apples to apples
The apples that bruise easy
The apples with skin that snaps when you bite
The firm ones, the mealy ones, the creamy ones

Just be thankful
If in front of you
There’s an apple

Alanna Shaikh is a first-generation American and the daughter of a Muslim immigrant. Her poetry is influenced by the landscape of Northern New York state where she grew up, daily life and the literature in the seven countries she’s lived in, and her work in global health and pandemic response. Her poetry has been published or accepted for publication in Examined Life Journal, Crab Creek Review, Gordon Square Review and Moon City Review, among others.