Hello wizenface, hello apple,
understudy in the fridge
since March (it’s September).
Hello wrinkly red cheeks,
I’ll bet you’re almost a year old,
born last autumn,
kept in the fruit storage built
half-underground on the farm,
then, in the snow, sold to me.
Hello my honey crisp (well,
my honey, no longer crisp . . . )
are you asking why you
haven’t been eaten by now?
Because that man hewed to his routines:
an apple for lunch every day,
the same red punctuation.
You were earmarked for the date
he slipped from my arms & we both
slid to the floor, red angel, are you
listening? 911, hospital, hospice,
and ten days later (you were
about six months old then),
he died and was carried
to a cold shelf.
