Crush

I was eight and he
could peel an apple
in one long piece,
a curl that drifted down
between his knees.
He draped it in my hair,
smiling, "Now you have a curl".

Crisp white flesh sliced to share.
"A bite for you,
a bite for me."
but it was the green and yellow
curl I cherished, lifted
from my hair that night
and hung to dry
slowly twisting in the air.
Long after he'd gone
back to Arizona,
I could smell apple again,
hear his laugh and long
to be seventeen too.