Taste and See

Sweet, sweet answer dangles, mysterious,

In the misty orchard veiled.

It beckons me to come and find it,

Along the winding, sandy trail.

There are no footprints in the clay,

Except from birds and armadillos.

Briars wind up, untouched for decades,

Wiry, in the overgrowth.

Barely recognizable, the order,

The angles of the trees arranged,

For wild bushes and vines have grown among them,

Disguising the design.

The thorns have torn me on my journey—

Bright red trickle, down my thigh,

And over my knee,

But I have reached the fruited casper.

I pause to reckon the ripened cosmos.

Do I value the beauty of glory, too much?

Will I deign to consume it?

“Taste and see,”

The apple dares me,

And so, I smile, and reach for him,

Catching the drift of the sweet suggestion,

And the weight of my essential hunger.

-jenn long