“An Exuberance of Apples” by Wendy Donawa

August 13, 2024

Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “An Exuberance of Apples” by Wendy Donawa. Due to its formatting, this poem is only available as an image.

An Exuberance of Apples

By Wendy Donawa

1. coastal cottage rental fearsome tides -heaving waves gusts shudder rain across windows black night moiling we light candles try to keep the fire going grill cheese sandwiches on the old wood stove oh savoury salvation delectable snuggled on the sagging couch under the old HBC blanket how sapid slabs of Manchego Camembert Parmesan and the crisp slice of their apple consorts Gala Ambrosia that little bite of resistance so piquant as the heat rises the melting stormed cabin shaking and shaking but we don’t notice one sandwich we’ll find in the morning squashed flat under the cushions 2. so finally we sit up cross-legged on the ravenous sheets down the remains of the apple pie good so good pastry flaking so tender from its rolling and folding rolling and folding flaking on our moist skin delicate paté feuilletée apples sweet tart in their pastry monstrance slightly crisp tongues and teeth work their juices syrupy trickle your cinnamon-scented skin lick up every drop every crumb 3. bundling into the narrow hall arms full of market bags we stop to kiss squashed against the door and the bag dumps apples everywhere laughing so hard we slid down the wall as apples rollick all over the floor where we lie until they calm down but I bang my elbow something awful on the coat-stand which fell on us Stygian darkness covering us with loden coats and puffy jackets as we consider the apple for Aphrodite, love’s symbol for people of the book temptation and downfall for the Greeks sliced apple as vulva fertility but the judgement of Paris didn’t end well

Copyright © Wendy Donawa

Wendy Donawa spent much of her adult life in Barbados, where she was educated, raised her family, and enjoyed her work as a college instructor and museum curator. She has returned to her Victoria birthplace on the unceded traditional territory of the Songhees and Esquimalt people. Her poems have appeared in magazines, chapbooks, anthologies, and public transport buses; she has read in libraries, bookstores, literary festivals, reading series, parks, and pubs! Her first book, Thin Air of the Knowable, was longlisted for the Raymond Souster Award and a Gerald Lampert Award finalist. Our Bodies’ Unanswered Questions, her second poetry collection, appeared as one of the Frontenac Quartet (Frontenac House) in 2021.

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