Poem

Election Day

Fall comes on and this is how the apple rots. On the limb or on the ground, in the bottom of the barrel. Rolling forgotten in the back of the farmer’s pickup like a BB under the skin. It puckers, contracts, shrivels into something smaller and softer than it should be. An old woman’s wrinkled face, too toothless to speak clearly. Or marrow seeping from a crushed bone. A harbinger of pulp. A temporary stain. Fall comes on and this is how the apple rots, leaving behind its seed.