In the orchard, a blue-white shell of ice
hangs on a low branch on a low tree –
it holds everything you know about apples

[apple, or apple, eple and apful, epli, aeple, aepael, apel, *ab(e)l, the root meaning apple, but also a name, Hebhel, meaning both ‘breath’ and ‘vanity’ and ‘murderer’ – an apple is an any fruit – finger-apples, earth-apples, love-apples, apples of paradise – an apple is a man and a woman crouching naked in a garden – Eve ate an apple, but so did Adam – it stuck in his throat and calcified - the pip of an apple-apple contains cyanide – you would need to chew 200 seeds to die by apple – in a fairytale an apple can kill with a bite – the apple of the eye is the pit of the iris; it is also the one that you love – the apple is both the fruit and the tree and the colour – apple is just a shape – apples live in the cheeks of children and virgin maids – mad-apple, mayapple, oak-apple, the gall of the wasps – Apple-time is the third Quarter of the Year – an apple is a pome, a pomme, a ball, a globe, an orb, a knob, a heart - apple is a verb, to swell, become globular, apple-shaped – to apple is to gather fir-cones, for the specified purpose of burning - children love apples more than gold – to be appleless is to be without apples]

apple-knowledge leaks from a pinprick
in the apple-case, leaving only blue-white glass,
the suggestion of an apple-shape.