Dan Overgaard was born and raised in Thailand. He attended Westmont College, dropped out, moved to Seattle, became a transit operator, then managed transit technology projects and programs. He’s now retired and catching up on reading. His poems have appeared in Shark Reef, Willawaw Journal, As It Ought To Be Magazine, Glass Poetry: Poets Resist, The High Window, Canary Lit Mag, Shot Glass Journal, Allegro Poetry, Triggerfish Critical Review, and other journals. Read more at: danovergaard.com

Lifting Off

Tightly packed as apples, and gently bruised
by admonitions, we are harvested
between some trees, flung up as if we’re used
to being lifted off and buffeted
together, waxed and chilled. And so we are.
All of a crop and round as we are red
inside, we dread a culling in the air,
a judgment that might fling us on our heads.

Hoping to keep some sweetness in this crunch—
but thinly skinned—we try to stay alive
by using little apple stratagems
to keep from going rotten over lunch.
No worms this time, thank God, and we arrive
a little green, if twisted on our stems.