Haiku: Old Apple Tree

Thick fruit and leaf walls
hang low, her best harvest yet.
The weight breaks her limbs.

Unshuttered

UNSHUTTERED

I had used up the stock
and swept clean the warehouse,
diluting the blood and tears with scrubbing.
I left it airy and open,
the sun flowing into rectangular pools on the floor.

I saw no prospects.
I had no capital to invest.
I locked the doors.

Then a shipment arrived, unordered and unpaid.
I opened it gingerly.
The words, bright mirrors, were jumbled in their crates.
The tees caught in the bellies of the gees.
The jays hooked into the bee bulges.
And the esses? They locked everything.

Their edges were razor-sharp.
It took me weeks, bleeding, to sort them out.
Now they lie, gleaming, at the ready.

The Poetry Factory has reopened for business.