The Orchard of Static

An orchard of static hums behind the house, branches tuned to weather, to a distant choir; the wind edits its own sheet music, and the apples glow like captured radio.

At dusk I walk the rows with a small lantern, each tree a tower, each leaf a green antenna; the air tastes of iron and rain, as if the sky has just been soldered.

Some nights the fruit speaks in soft interference, stories of storms that never touched this valley; I cup the hiss in my hands like water, let it spill through the seams of my gloves.

By morning the ground is littered with quiet, pale crescents of light in the grass; I gather them into a wicker basket, carry them inside to ripen into silence.