Soliloquy to an Apple.

From the back door,
through the old garden
and all the way up
the driveway, it takes me
until I get to the road
to realize
that I have a truly beautiful apple
in my hand.

From there til two houses down
I walk going hungry
because I can't bring myself
to eat something
so heavenly.

For three houses more, I marvel
at the little red cosmos I pulled
out of the apple drawer and then
pause in astonishment, noticing
for the first time
the green galaxy near the top,
careening towards the decline,
the singularity in the core

To the apple:
Did you begin
at the bottom,
where the hidden explosion
marks the Big Bang
of fruit?

By house number 128, I am skipping
in joy, singing,
"I've got the world's most beautiful
apple!  I really do!"

By 132 I feel daring
and wickedly bounce
the apple in my palm a few times,
feeling the cool slap
of flesh on flesh.
I feel like a Goddess, but
a reckless one,
tossing my universe like that.

At 135 I reflect in horror
how I almost twisted
that beautiful stem off, a thousand
years ago.  How could I
have ever been
so barbaric?

To the apple:
You didn't really do that
to Eve, did you?

For the next quarter of
the neighborhood, I run:
there's too much beauty
filling up my head, and as
the pregnant blue air
rushes by,
I'm afraid of dropping
my apple.

I contemplate, with
wild urging all of a sudden at 172,
placing my treasure in someone's mailbox,
knowing anyone would be
delighted to receive
such a gift
but I am a selfish human,
and rush on.

House 115 has a song blaring
from somewhere in back:
Lithium.
Yeah,
yeah,
I agree,
I found God
too -

Back at 112, buried in
my old garden under the sky,
I finally eat
the apple
not carelessly now but knowing
that I have planted pure poetry
within me
and scattered the seeds
by the autumn pond
that the earth
may never forget
its child -

So this is happiness:
falling leaves and the moon
for a guardian angel, sunshine
illuminating my cosmos.

To the apple:
Thank you, apple.