Six lovely red, unspoiled apples
lay atop a heap of typical American trash,
call me with a snake-like hiss,
feast on us, feast on us, feast on us.
Come on, Adam; it’s why we exist.
But you’re in a dumpster, I reply,
mingled with garbage, waste, refuse.
What about germs, sanitation, hygiene?
What about my middle-class American pride?

Alongside the apples, a blood-stained newspaper
speaks headlines of disaster—
starving children in Myanmar, Dharfur,
the refugee camps in Syria and Uganda.
I think the sin, not that original in this land of plenty,
would be to let these apples rot, so I pluck them
from the trash, take them home, devour them,
their sweet juice running down my throat
as I write a check to a local food shelf
to assuage the guilt only the full-bellied feel.