—I’M SCARED, TOO

 

How to Eat an Apple

You punch a hole 

in the sky 

because it’s there

because you can

this once 

an angry girl with 

pubescent acne 

but no answers 

bruised knees 

scarred chin

and a tender 

bottom again.

There’s a key 

looped on a chain 

across your chest 

though you don’t 

know what it opens, 

the world is so vast 

and ribald, a library

flooded with hallways 

and dead ends 

that simply resemble 

an old photo of yesterday.

Tomorrow might be darker 

than today—

it’s December after all,

but you take out 

your paints anyway 

while the sitter smokes her cig, 

and you sketch an apple 

being birthed inside a cloud,

red and round like a cartoon heart 

or a set of ripe lungs for someone

who needs them badly.

You add a stem and two small leaves

while you sit staring at it for hours 

as the clock chimes and 

the cabs run and you 

realize you’re too hungry to eat, 

especially something that beautiful, 

an apple made of air.