Time’s vista falls unsmiling
upon this hidden theater of unresolved gasps,
surely no missteps have led here—
the basement of all the fates—
where nameless mute actors were meant no portion anyhow,
and dreams won’t be rescued
from the discordant sums of our worth.
 
So let us rot together as a number of apples
in sunshine on a wooden plank,
beguiling in their first fragrance
before the day turns too old
and their notice—too little for anyone’s study or care.
 
Shall we wither in virtue
clasped dearly to the turning tree
or be picked
and washed
and named for pie,
or be first mother Eve’s delight—
sinking her perfect teeth into all of her children’s
imperiled descent from grace?
 
Despairing of autumn’s cool promise
we dim,
and only the laden flies’ urgency
will testify that we were once alive.

Jeffery D. Pratte calls Little Rock home Though he lives and writes in prison in central florida. After a decade as a clearly failed legal writer he turns his pen to poetry and fiction where freedom is more realized.