Extract

Biting through skins

She peels the apple

the effort

of biting through skin

too much.

The peel, red-bitter, white-sweet

curls in snake coils

onto pale wood.

In the bowl

more apples gleam

blushing at their own kind

denuded.

Help yourself, she tells me

and I do

filling my hand with fruit.

The table snake browns

lazily

its skin shrinks.

A hiss

and my teeth cut

through bitter to the core.

Unwise I am always

biting through skins.