Lucie McKee
Apple
Medieval altarpiece painters would have loved that apple
there on a pile of other apples in the supermarket.
It was perfect and sported a halo about it,
all other apples gone gray in their lacks.
Coming upon such an apple, I was tempted to steal it, not
because I didn’t have the money, or enjoyed stealing,
but to spare it the ignominy of being bought -
such a priceless object can only sit in state to preside over
lesser things that exist to acknowledge their own
insignificance. Somewhere on every medieval altarpiece was
a tiny object, painted with exquisite care, that was placed
in a corner of the painting as though sitting there
only for God. I do not believe in God, I believe in the exquisite
possibility of this apple and in chance that had it that
it would be sitting there for me to see. Suddenly, someone
just next to me said: You done here? and scared that he’d grab it
I took the apple and placed it apart from all the other things in my
basket, and paid for it separately, so clarifying
the money as to make it exchange of some kind,
paying in silver which was all I could do not having anything
with more lustre to offer the cashier who took the coins
and did not understand anything. What I understood
was that this was the most beautiful apple
I’d ever seen - and would ever see.
All this happened on a snowy evening in the market.
Page(s) 33
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