Bruised bitter apple:
the horror! To roll across my tracks.
Of the crab variety,
we decipher what's in cider.
Fright, how might, precisely,
the worms persisted- when once
flesh was tender enough?
Now they are dead, the apple dented
where butted their unsuspecting heads.
When guts are made a graveyard,
no Wicked Queen’s power overrules
the external grotesque, or the royal
inner circle’s internal damage, ringed
  like trees,
   like circles of hell.
Sour taste, and, more importantly--
wriggling, struggling,
self-pesticidal hopes and dreams.
Unsightly to fit their environs.
Some as parasites, but some only friends.