My father, in his Air Force uniform,
sitting on a large apple tree branch,
beautiful man, and jaunty—the word
common then as eggs.

My mother, two months pregnant,
standing on the porch, in her red Arabian
slippers, her tresses agitated by the wind—  

and her son now eating an apple, watching
the first snow, his hair white
as his father’s the last time he whispered goodbye.