Buying Apples After Not Leaving the House for Three Days
Last fall's most likely and alreadymealy, buried for months
in a warehouse cooler, onlyto be thrown into the mercy
of this grocery's discount bin.My mother, of course, would know,
who could tell a good apple simplyby how it sounded.
Or the men: the one who fed meslices drizzled in honey or the other
who served them to me on a blade.But tonight I'm not asking.
I press my thumb into the bruised skin,feeling for that which survives
the queasy lurch into darkthen light then dark again. [End Page 90]
Leah Silvieus is the author most recently of the poetry collection Arabilis (Sundress Publications) and is the co-editor of The World I Leave You: Asian American Poets on Faith and Spirit. She holds an MFA from the University of Miami and has awards and fellowships from The National Book Critics Circle, Fulbright, and Kundiman. Her criticism has appeared in The Harvard Review, The Believer, and elsewhere. She is currently based in New Haven where she studies literature and religion at Yale Divinity School and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music.
