I see an apple

Poem by Jacob Jing

sunday: the apples I bought for us 

have rotted. in apology, I chop them into squashy

halves, leave them where the light can smooth over

their soft skins. in the glisten of the fruit’s 

sandy, slick-softened muscle, I imagine a field of roses

erupting over where the knife ran it through. the apple

emptying itself through that tender wound.

if I make rose a synonym of blood, will you finally

stanch the flow? If I make apple a synonym of

us, will you finally recognize the rot? we are

spilling out of our skins, separating 

around a stream of flowers. we become what

the knife has made of us, unwanted and unmoored.

when the petals begin to wither us open, I take the apple

and toss it outside—our lives as the force 

with which it strikes the ground, our bodies as

the halves tumbling away from each other, and our love

as the bees flitting to the rotten fruit, 

drinking themselves to death on the sweetness.