A woman who aspired to grow her own apples spent time pruning trees in shapes she was comfortable seeing and when none bore fruit she screamed to the wind & the river & any being who would listen her proclamation: "my apple trees are broken, stunted things" the trees quaked, and waked, wondering "why? what is it that makes me unworthy to bear fruit?" the whispers between them as the cultivator paced the orchard, cursing and muttering limbs shook with fear of possibilities pruned? chopped? abandoned? ablaze? one tree to another we plotted and pushed maybe if we sang by shaking our leaves perhaps if we braced against the wind or shifted to the sun the proper bud might shoot no matter only leaves would form and in the fall, they fell, the branches sighing with the weight of hundreds of imagined apples We grew up believing the progenitor's lie never questioning "what type of fruit was I meant to bear?" yours, pear mine, cherry she still insisted we were apple trees To an apple farmer: all trees bear apples
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