The apple that survived the fall

Girl left for eight hours in car with murdered family

The Guardian, 7 September 2012

A campsite in the Massif Central.

Mountains whisper with voices of streams.

An amber girl gathers apples in the shade

of gnarled limbs.

Many lie bruised. Her grandmother scrutinizes,

sets them down

like stillborn kittens on the ground.

The amber girl prizes most the apples with leaves,

the ones she believes still alive and becoming trees,

not fooled by the magic of seeds.

Granny furbishes one on her sleeve, eat this one

that survived the fall.

A banderole road

shadows a wind-chime stream,

the engine hums

a lively tune to the pitch and roll

of the mountain’s hem. And then

the music stops

and screaming begins,

windows shattering,

shards, a blizzard

of glass inside the car.

Amber girl dives for cover

beneath her grandmother’s skirts.

Crack of snapping wood,

words not understood,

a smell like bonfire night,

door wrenched, flung wide,

yelling, cracking,

her sister's wordless pleading,

father, mother,

another crack, and another.

A roadside in the Massif Central.

The dead whisper with voices of streams.

An amber girl under canvas in the shade

of gnarled limbs.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet