Becoming Paper

Try this—
Eat an apple
Leave the core
Lying around somewhere
Go back and force yourself
To look at it
Fascinating
How the luscious flesh
Withers and dries
Turning to a screw of paper
The seeds inside rattling
Barren as black stones
Blind-eyed—
The core itself imploding.
Strange too to think
We have this same capacity
To dessicate to the limits
The shrunken outline
Of what might have been a life
Ready to dissolve like a wafer
Upon a child’s pink tongue