The Seeds

They slide over the patch of smooth grey slate encircling the orchard.  ‘Once this wall seemed impassable’ Bertrand muses, nostalgia shimmering in his russet eyes.

‘We’re wiser now’ Sylvie replies, words coated with melancholy.  She orbits ahead of him, her sun-yellow dress matted by the shadow chasing overhead driving inexorably across the trees, then turns and clambers onto Bertrand’s lithe back, gnawing at the spot where the astral strings of his hair arc into his neck.  Dropping her gently like a cloud he mounts one of the apple trees, tracing his fingers across the promise he carved in expectant naivety.

‘I wonder what they’d look like’ He ventured

‘Beautiful.’  She was firm, rooted.

‘You would say that’

‘Who’s to argue?’

‘Not me’ considering at once, forever-lost kiss and make-up times. ‘They’d have your eyes’ he said, bathing in hers.

‘Maybe, but Ambroise and Nadine would have your smile’

‘You named them?’

‘Are you angry?’

‘No; they’re perfect’

Bertrand plucks an apple from a branch and lets it drop.  It falls by Sylvie’s knees.

‘I'm not scared’ she whispers, cheeks gleaming with ruby veracity.

‘I was at first’ he confesses, ‘but as it grew nearer, my fear kind of shrank, relatively’ 

He climbs down, grinning at her like Venus in the morning sky.  She opens her hand and they swallow together.    

Sylvie curls, spiralling around the fruit.  Bertrand reciprocates. In turn they grab a handful of dust and sprinkle it over each other; blankets against the coming night’s chill.