Su Cho

At an Apple Orchard in Door County, Wisconsin

for A

In a barn, which is really a store, I stand in front of a pyramid of horseradish spreads
and everyone stares at me. The garlic mustard kraut horseradish isn’t even from here
but from Blackberry Farm in Georgia. I read each flavor profile.
Put everything I touch into my basket. From a bushel of pears, I pick one
of each color. I wait for you to come back from the bathroom and think
of the weekend I spent whispering I haven’t seen anyone like me, yes, there!
I see a family I knew in Purdue Village but that would be impossible
because that was over 15 years ago. I saw their black hair, square silver glasses,
daughters in pigtails, squeaky light-up shoes. Instead of smiling,
nodding yes, I see you, I stare at their empty red-trim basket.
Yes, my love is white and yes I do wonder how long our children’s eyelashes
will be, what shade of brown their hair turns in the sun.
This no longer gives me joy but a wish to watch them race each other
through the hay maze, laughing loudly at the caricature pumpkins with giant eyes.

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Su Cho lives in Milwaukee, where she serves as Editor-in-Chief for Cream City Review. You can find her work in Poetry, New England Review, Gulf Coast, Southeast Review and elsewhere. Her essay “Cleaving Translation” was the winner of Sycamore Review’s 2019 Wabash Prize for Creative Nonfiction and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. You can learn more at www.suchowrites.com or follow her on Twitter @su__cho.