And once again it's Apple Time. We gather apples and crush them into juice. But I peel a few carefully to make slices for a pie, which reminds me of childhood. I'm still intrigued by those long uncertain skin snakes appearing as the apple is rotated against the blade... Noughts and Crosses She peels them with her usual skill against her thumb. The apple turns. In the bucket windfalls wait which we gathered where they fell. I watch the freed peel fall away still tethered – for how long I wonder. Gravity is light. I hear another apple fall. You can tell the future she says quietly to herself although I do not want to know. I select a strip of skin bend it round into an O in which the future might be held. I peel them with my usual skill against my thumb. The apple turns. The years have passed. As they grow old apples fall into the grass. Time itself descends, is pulled by gravity, no longer light. This time I pick two strips of skin and drop th