droplet

a knife cuts through flesh
of an apple ripened under a
california sun. the juice slides down
the curves of the apple, slipping
away from her and spreading thin
on the old wooden table below to
be quickly evaporated back
into the atmosphere. some people
call it a cycle, i call it
the birth-life-death game that
everyone loses and everyone wins
and everyone plays whether they like it
or not. the apple halves and falls
seed-side up, raw, exposed, so
tender and womanly. i pick up
one and roll it around in my fingers,
hold it directly in sunlight to brown
and age falsely. make it less delicious, less
perfect than it could be. i take the knife
and halve it again- make the edges brown
like leaves do in the fall- how
the skin of a filipino does after being in the sun
for only a short while. i toss the other half
on the ground and it rolls collecting dirt
and dust, a spray tan for the forgotten
fruit. i walk away with knife in hand and
browned apple pieces in the other. the knife glides against
my thigh, a cut so gentle and smooth that
it goes on noticed until a blood droplet
cools near my ankle. i was told this knife wasn't
too sharp, that there are many sharper ones out there
but today i learned that there is no difference
between sharp and sharper.