It never saved us from the rain, but
Julian’s apple core looked like an umbrella with a stem
and tasted like the Tecolote Mountains
because that’s where we always picked them.

Julian’s apple core looked like an umbrella with a stem.
He tossed it down from a tree in the Tecolote Mountains
because that’s where we always picked them.
It looked like a green planet falling smoothly out of orbit.

He tossed it down to me from a tree in the Tecolote Mountains
and promised matching Harley’s and sunglasses to keep the bugs out of our eyes.
They looked like green planets falling smoothly out of orbit.
We ate so many, the cores crept up our pant legs like scrambled field mice.

He promised matching Harley’s and sunglasses to keep the bugs out of our eyes.
I imagined riding to our apple tree. Kickstands sunk into the dirt.
We ate so many, the cores crept up our pant legs like scrambled field mice.
Through their scratches, we kept eating as they fell from their branches.

I imagined riding to our apple tree. Kickstands sunk into the dirt.
Sometimes we only took one bite before dropping those little planets to the ground.
Through the scratches, we kept eating as they fell from their branches, but
all I wanted was to turn the apples into umbrellas.

Sometimes we only took one bite before dropping those little planets to the ground.
Julian’s apple core never saved us from the rain, but
I still wanted to turn them into umbrellas
and to taste the Tecolote Mountains with every first bite.

—
Alejandro Lucero is a writer from Sapello, New Mexico by way of Denver. He serves as an intern and poetry reader for Copper Nickel. Pushcart Prize nominee, his most recent poetry and nonfiction can be found in Progenitor Art & Literary Journal and is forthcoming in The Susquehanna Review and Thin Air Magazine.