A POEM ABOUT WHITE APPLES Poem by Valzhyna Mort

white apples, first apples of summer,
with skin as delicate as a baby's,
crispy like white winter snow.
your smell won't let me sleep,
this is how dead men
haunt their murderers' dreams.
white apples,
this is how every july the earth
gets heavier under your weight.

and here only garbage smells like garbage . . .
and here only tears taste like salt . . .

we were picking them
like shells in green ocean gardens,
having just turned away from mothers' breasts
we were learning
to get to the core of everything with our teeth.

so why are our teeth like cotton wool now . . .

white apples,
in black waters, the fishermen,
nursed by you, are drowning.