the summer the apricot tree died
I had been asked to tend to the still ripening
apricots that hung as small green bulbs
from the branches of a young tree
in its first flower.
Sown two falls ago.
Father pat the earth with hesitance
as he first lay the seeds to rest.
He smiled before pressing up his glasses
with a dirt covered finger tip.
It then began to rain.
Steady mercies.
About the Author: Andres Cordoba is a Massachusetts born writer. He has received honors such as the Ginny Wray Poetry prize, the Thayer Fellowship For the Arts, the Patricia Kerr Ross Award, and was named a 2019 Breakout 8 Writer in poetry by Epiphany: A Literary Journal. His work has appeared in Italics Mine, The Gandy Dancer, Gravitas, and Epiphany Journal. A real self-starter, a go-getter– a team player, if you will– his mother refers to him as the Michael Jordan of mutual losses.
Image Credit: Pomologie française: Paris, Langlois et Leclercq,1846. (Public Domain) Image courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library
As It Ought To Be 