Sitting on a park bench
at five PM,
she eats an apple
slowly
to the core.
She walks across and throws it in the rubbish bin, colliding
with the people marching home from work.
She returns
to her bench,
sucks her lips,
and reaches for another.
She holds the stem and
twists the fruit,
muttering
A...B...C...
with
each
taut
rotation.
The stem snaps at M.
Her future husband will be called Maurice.
(He was Franklin a core before.)
