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      January 9, 2024About Those ApplesCindy Putnam Guentherman

      She is the apple of his eye.

      One crisp Labor Day
      when bands were playing in the distance
      and the apples were red on our trees
      and my husband had put his hands
      around my neck and banged my head
      against the wall one time too many,
      I quietly gathered up the kids and
      disappeared forever.
      Fear can make a person do crazy things
      and so I left most of the household stuff
      behind, paid all the bills, set the checkbook
      on the kitchen table and locked the door
      behind me. I had already packed the
      remainder of the garden into jars.
      But when we finally talked, he did not
      say I love you
      or I miss you
      or I’m sorry
      or please come home. Nope.
      He said
      but what am I gonna do
      with all these apples.

      from Prompt Poem of the Month

      Note from the series editor, Katie Dozier

      Prompt: Write a poem that begins with an idiomatic expression that you take literally or incorrectly, and see where it goes.

      “The voice of this poem feels like peeling an apple in a single strand, but with a sudden, biting shift in narrative that gives it more weight than a barrel of fruit. The kind of poem that leaves you bobbing afterwards; I was particularly riveted by how it turns the idiom on its head twice.”

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