January 16, 2010

There are some things,
try as we might, we
cannot shake off our
dusty boots of progress.

The weights I carried
as an eager child
still slow my gait
as a bearded man,

and the poisoned apple
I peeled with my teeth
still sits, unbruised and
glowing in my passive fruitbowl.

I wonder if the greater
danger of sharing this fruit is
that I might poison the world
or realize after so many hungry years
that the fruit was never poisoned.