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Long listed for the 2023 Urban Tree festival writing competition
In the summer of my thirteenth year I made a hammock from old sheets, knotted it between two apple trees that stood in our small backyard. Both gnarled, one propped at the hip, together, they bore my weight as I drowsed through the thick secret rustle of hot afternoons a notebook across my knees, each page a fretwork of shadow and light. I scowled away Mum, bearing juice and Dad when he checked the knots. It was to the trees I whispered and they bent their heads to listen as I gently swung, an unripe fruit carried like one of their own - green and troubled beneath the skin, a dark starring of pips at the heart. When the windfalls came, I tasted my own wasp-sharpness in their flesh until Mum showed me how to bake them - just a little sugar, a gentle heat.