Apple Sonnet
The French word for apple sounds a little
like poem. We hear poem, with our English ears.
The fruit that sent Eve and her blaming man
to ruin, and pain, and the wearing of socks.
We hear a snake in the grass. We hear that
it was actually, probably, a
pomegranate, which is implicated
in other stories of damnation, which
is good for our hearts, which is a nice touch
in our winter cocktails, which sparkles like
rubies and stains like blood. What did I say?
When French people say pomme, it means apple.
And I want to write you a poem like that:
A something you can live on when I’m gone.