Green Apple Hooks by Patrick W. Marsh
The monster swiveled the bait clockwise
in its jagged, carnivorous shadow,
beneath the cauliflower-orange of the autumn orchard.
The fruit, its jade bark gleaming, supple and shiny,
a waxy mirror off the heavy boughs and branches.
How many times it thought
could this edible peridot draw
a few more visitors who ignore the skeleton stains
lining and glancing out of the scattered leaves,
like a macabre blueprint or schematic.
This tree-stalking butcher is a cloaked nightmare,
standing in a camouflaged hood and an antler crown,
with magic sinew of shadow and starlight
connecting red shoulders and claws
a hungry and breathing nightmare life.
Unhinged from the devil herd,
this man-eater throws two wires into the
cast-off, fire foliage floating between the tree roots.
Two fresh apples on each end are ruinous magnets,
with flesh-greedy hooks and barbs for magnetism.
Winter is lurking on the frosty edge of fall.
The shape knows it must feed its three mouths,
those jawbones sweating across its dark fabric,
until it’s completely long and fueled.
Still those throats and gullets wonder,
after eating so many people,
what do the apples taste like?