In the tale
the apple tree rises before her,
not in an orchard,
but solitary and sudden
in a world she does not know
is supernatural. It asks
in an old woman’s voice
to be relieved of its red-faced burden.
Further on, in a field,
she hears the terrified cries 
of bread almost burned in its fireplace.
She does not ask who made bread
in an uninhabited wilderness.

So memory raises landmarks,
unbidden, out of place
and time. My father sits
in the long-discarded chair;
the pages of the history book
he leafs through keep springing back
to the beginning. He does not explain
his presence here. Without a question
I pull the bread from the ashes
and place it on the ground to cool.