Apple

Its cut-open center shows a darkly outlined

Double aura. Poking out of that is a seed, a small

Love point, a repetition

Of the pattern of sex.

This apple is symmetrical, with a neat curved stem.

The waxed outside is the bright infertile green

Of artificial grass, the flesh

Bland, blank, cells pressed so close

Their edges have merged.

But still, again and again, on all things growing, that

pattern.

She stands naked in her garden, her red hair

Down over her shoulders, her freckled hand

Extended. Adam, she says...

Birds shift in the tree, turn

Their blue and scarlet tails under, leaves incline,

Each one spills a drop of moisture,

The small wind pauses, makes a bubble of stillness around

Her body, his body,

The apple green globe sits on her palm,

All the light of steamy Paradise collects around it.

Adam bends his head. It's his world's perfume he's

Breathing in. It's the skin of that world

He sinks his teeth into.