Untitled #7 by Elizabeth Upshur

—after Nick Martino’s Polaroid

ieat the red apple and been made miserable at its bland skin, its inner lining too simple to be called sweet for my tongue. And I have tasted Granny Smith apples with a paring knife to save my braces, sour juice tart as a nail d against my finger, dull but electrifying. My favorite, and the only one i have dare bite into like an animal are the Gala apples, or Fiji, a florid red-yellow thing that falls soft and pulpy against my gnashing molars and one remaining wisdom tooth. Is there any difference to the throat? That humbler apparatus that is more life saving than bratty tongue—now that poisonous berries are less of an evolutionary concern? What about the stomach, roiling up acid and digestives day by day by day for every other organ the only one to whale call in triumph? What of the sphincter, the lifesaver after everything else—the tongue, the belly, the intestines, the Pepto Bismol, granny’s apple trick, and the Ginger-ale-and-lie-down have all failed? I am thankful for them all, the stars i can name in the vast array of constellations.

i have eaten the red apple and been made miserable at its bland skin, its inner lining too simple to be called sweet for my tongue. And I have tasted Granny Smith apples with a paring knife to save my braces, sour juice tart as a nail dragged against my finger, dull but electrifying. My favorite, and the only one i have dared bite into like an animal are the Gala apples, or Fiji, a florid red-yellow thing that falls soft and pulpy against my gnashing molars and one remaining wisdom tooth. Is there any difference to the throat? That humbler apparatus that is more life saving than bratty tongue—now that poisonous berries are less of an evolutionary concern? What about the stomach, roiling up acid and digestives day by day by day for every other organ, itself the only one to whale call in triumph? What of the sphincter, the lifesaver after everything else—the tongue, the belly, the intestines, the Pepto Bismol, granny’s apple trick, and the Ginger-ale-and-lie-down have all failed? I am thankful for them all, the stars i can name in the vast array of constellations.