Placing Works

Each cut across the apple grain
snatches crisp from the fist
clenched like a core, holding
back its cyanide behind the 
lowest right molar.
Chop chop, breadless crop,
the tree is against the grain
entrenched in gravity's 
pain, benched when to 
fall is not a moment of
switch season, rather 
the canines of a
saw's reason.
Lay your insufficiencies 
down at the foot of this
temporary bed and dream 
of a tempo that is better
left unread, unsaid, and 
an underappreciated red.