When Apple first fell

from the Tree, she bobbed

along on her sea

of forgetfulness,

oblivious to

the bruises on her

backside, pockets of

pus hidden by a

polished red skin. She

named her world Stunning,

and made plans to suit.

.

Tucked in the shadow

of those gnarled roots, her

gnarled senses labelled

sickly vapours ‘air’,

decomposition

‘bed’, insect-breeding

swamp ‘home’. Belonging

lulled feelings into

a caricature

of the love she read

about in novels.

.

But the day she rolled

outside canopy

limits, beyond the

reach of Eden’s bite,

sun-seared retinas

peeled the picture bare –

twisted trunk and sour

fruit and warped world-view

became as glaring

as raw contusions.

.

Now she rolls, rolls, rolls,

far from the madding

shroud, far from the reach

of branches carved like

talons from deformed,

wormy wood. Far from

the Tree, in a patch

of pure light on grass

greener than life, she

sows a single seed.