The Backyard Burial

Every child buries things
in the backyard dirt.
Dead birds, time capsules,
the small ceremonies of growing up.

But what I buried at seven
was not a bird and not a capsule.
It was something I found in the basement
that I knew instinctively should not be seen.

Small and wet and still.
Wrapped in a dishcloth.
Carried to the apple tree at dusk
and buried with a stick for a headstone.

I did not tell my parents.
I did not tell anyone.
I sealed that memory the way I sealed the earth,
pressing it down with both palms.

The backyard burial was thirty-three years ago,
and the apple tree has grown around it.
The backyard burial was supposed to stay buried,
but roots push everything upward eventually.

I went back this year.
The tree is enormous now.
And from the trunk, at about four feet,
something is emerging from the bark.

Not pushing out, growing out.
Incorporated into the wood.
Adopted by the root system
and carried upward through the heartwood.

It is bigger now than when I buried it.
The tree has been feeding it for decades.
And what emerges from the bark
is not what I put in the ground.

The new owners of the house
say the apples taste strange this year.
Meaty, they said, almost savory.
Like the tree is fruiting something different.

And in the split of the trunk,
where the bark has peeled away,
there is a face
with features I recognize.

Because I put them there
when I was seven years old.
And the tree has spent thirty-three years
giving them back.