Poetry

Apple

Rough my skin with your honey-soaked, rasping, wandering lips,

And gnaw, with your ivory-claws, my white flesh.

Your tooth picks around the core and more.

It just pricks the heart.

The stem, withered like a wick,

                  Abandons ship like dripping wax from a candle stick                 

Leaving what’s left to brown and wrinkle

And hang             open, like Tantalus’ jaw;

Unable to kiss the mouth that makes empty

The body that makes prisoners of the seeds

 that sigh unfulfilled. You are a maggot

Turned inside out; you leave the

Rot and take the living.

Like a maggot you’re medicinal.

Like medicine you are too readily given.

Like a gift you are kept by others and wrapped to be revealed.

Like revelation you are the end of all, just like the fall of an apple from your mouth to the floor.