core study: notes on an apple

imagination says
in time everything becomes
something else

 
an apple
sits by my window
for 300 years

 
one day a woman
takes a bite and
a flock of birds
takes off

 
it becomes wine
for a monk or the beginning
of an orchard

 
its life is yours
but has happened as
if in translation

 
a few steps
from the vertebrate
before you ever
really got to

 
eat that
apple.

 -

this apple
might scent your
grandmother's skin
at her wake

 
nervously you
memorize your furniture
as if each piece were a
passenger

 
on some final
voyage west, straight
into the sunset
of your imagination

 
the corners
we most live
in crumble

 
alas some places
are too small
for apples.

 -

once in holland
I saw a painting
of an apple

 
now some nights
I hang myself on the
wall like a painting
and wait

 
for a power
greater than
sleep to take
me to my

 
orchard.