(with first words borrowed from Eve Merriam’s “How to Eat a Poem”)

don’t worry that it might be sour; it will
bite first the spot where the lenticels gather
pick those spots, dark or light; they soak up air and sun
may that bite fill you with more than apple, may
it fill 
you with air and sun and tree and core
or curling leaf
for only in the biting can you find the sweetness
or maybe the sweet finds you, behind the sour
or the curling leaf crumbles in your fingers
or the core is all that’s left
or the skin of the apple, warm in your hand
or lenticels, speckling the skin…yes, that’s the word
to remember…the way green apples breathe