Summer Apples

I planted an apple tree in memory of my mother, who is not gone, but whose memory has become so transparent that she remembers slicing apples with her grandmother (yellow apples; blue bowl) better than the fruit that I hand her today. Still, she polishes the surface with her thumb, holds it to the light and says with no hesitation, Oh, Yellow Transparent . . . they're so fragile, you can almost seeto the core. She no longer remembers how to roll the crust, sweeten the sauce, but her desire is clear—it is pie that she wants. And so, I slice as close as I dare to the core— to that little cathedral to memory—where the seeds remember everything they need to know to become yellow and transparent.