abecedarian for the tomatoes you asked me to buy ten years ago - ETHAN YANG '27

Apple of the twisted vine,

bring me back to a time before

childhood, when everything

dear was seven heartbeats away. When I close my

eyes and slice into your

flesh, it feels the same as my own, but when I

grip your skin it feels like the

hands of my mother, her tender palms an

island of familiarity. I’ve forgiven you, so

just come home, she whispers, as my

knife’s silver smile dissects your chewy, fibrous core,

laying bare your seeds before plunging you in

murmuring water. I watch as you deflate into

narcotic softness, ruddy skin shriveling

older at the bottom of a

pot instead of in a hospital bed, but bleeding just as

quietly, just as inevitably, just as

red. After a thousand and one

seconds/regrets/days I

turn off the stove and pour a dilution of you into the

underside of my tongue. My eyes grow

vacant as I retreat

within myself and remember the

Xs on my calendar, all those

yesterdays a tangle of vines/an unspoken apology/a

zillion meals I never let you cook for me.