Apple Red as Blood

Ana Christaldi

To bite an apple is violent,
crushing red flesh
with jaws meant for jugulars
and settling for sweetness
over the raw taste of blood 

unless,
ravenous canines sink through fruit,
then, tongue—
slithering in pain behind a garden of teeth,
pearly and sharp and now, stained

with the scarlet smear
that marks an animal
built for the hunt,
driven by instinct and desire,
then— thrust into Paradise

and God weeps at the tiger in His castle hall
when it succumbs to its nature and bites
but He above all should know
the hunger, the yearning, the obsession,
by His own design

To bite an apple is a reminder,
that of God, dismayed by the Fall,
or maybe,
it is man's defiant snarl,
warning that they are still hungry