c3crew

the peeler/corer/slicer

and clamped it to the kitchen table

upside down. Peering under, our guests

couldn’t conceive the taper/circle/spring

but Look, friend: if you consider

the three spikes holding the apple in place,

and the handle that turns the screw

and presses every inch evenly into the blade,

then Time is circular and predictable;

it will skin and gut you over & over &

the fire engine would turn right

past me, siren grinding down to growl.

I’d drop the rake and run.

And when the paramedics’ stretcher

disappeared into the deck of the ambulance,

I would ghost through the walls of third

grade into another future. See how all

our certainty is no different from water

and dry ice under pressure in a test tube?

All ready to rise up as snow

when it shatters in a child’s hand?