Lesson

When was the last time you
washed a green apple – peeling
off the irksome sticker ­– and
quartered it on a chopping board?

Then sliced the quartered cores out
with two fine v-cuts
and threw them onto the lawn
for the birds? Then cut the quarters

into eighths and passed the eighths
around, eating two yourself
– the sharp fresh taste sweeter
than you’d expected?

James Brown

James Brown’s Selected Poems will be published by VUP in 2020.