Kevin Durkin

Northern Spy

“That apple tree up there’s a Northern Spy,”
my uncle says, “the last one of its kind
around these parts. For apple sauce or pie,

there’s nothing better than the Northern Spy.”
His father — my grandfather — comes to mind,
the farmer who set one small parcel by

for fruit trees. When he died, the Northern Spy
was not the only heirloom left behind.
The farmhouse, fields of hay cut down to dry,

a mountain spring that feeds the Northern Spy,
and pastures where a neighbor’s cattle wind
recall the days when horses, young and spry,

would munch the windfalls from the Northern Spy.
Now one old swaybacked stallion’s all you’ll find,
kept in the barn, his sable head held high,

far from the meadow of the Northern Spy.
He nuzzles hay; his molars slowly grind.
His eyes reflect an apple-tinted sky.