Finally, we had to leave that house, that Orchard. Too much violence there, in the country, by the train tracks, by the dump. We feel safer here in the city. Our books climb the walls stacked in gray wooden apple crates. When we first arrived, and we would get lost in the city streets and show up late for things we would still say, by way of explanation, "Oh, I found myself in the Orchard". We don't say that much anymore, it would be redundant. It is enough to see the stained fingers of raspberry picking and to smell the vegetable rot of summer. |