At dusk the ambulance came
pulling all the way up onto the lawn
like a red speed boat drifting

                                * * *

ashore. She was old.
She had fallen and broken her pelvis
while picking apples. She had

                                * * *

pruned that tree so many times
it appeared as a dark
hood. About it her white

                                * * *

head moved. The attendants, unloading
the gurney, argued about whose turn
it was to buy the pizza. I had been

                                * * *

sitting outside, reading beneath the yellow
leaves. I heard the thin
cry. She said to call, but that she