The Evening

The Evening

It starts with a man and a woman,
when everything tastes
of apples, like handfuls of earth
sweet from the ground,
the texture of tongue
callusing skin, frail and red,
and each aftertaste, a ringing
of cider inside a soft mouth,
from the apples spiced slowly
in barrels freshly hewn
from rough trees, their leaves,
fallen from bodies and strewn
on the ground, covering it in green
like the woman’s eyes, or the skin
of serpents, whose hisses
pierce flesh, and turn the cider
bitter, mouths tasting
like barrels used too frequently,
the decay of wood mixing
with rotting seeds of
the blood-red fruit.