Apples

by Benjamin Grossman

filled us with sin before we were even seeds. The protrusion in our throats is proof of this. Yet it is hard to stand over the understanding that what was once forbidden to eat is now recommended to eat daily. No other fruit can claim to keep the doctor away as well as God. The power of this rounded edibleness rests in its ability to lift the curtain on the strength of good and evil: one rotten apple spoils all the rest rotten whereas one good apple never polishes those ones of a rotten nature. But what of the insects that lay their eggs inside these apples? And where, if not underground, would the story of Snow White exist without a poisoned apple? Being the apple of one’s eye has nothing to do with apples and yet still the phrase speaks of their majesty. The apple really may not fall far from the tree, but when there are no more trees, where will the apples fall? Only the core may know that answer, or at least whoever planted those first seeds which roamed free.