At the Price Chopper

Such pretty apples in their crate 
All suspiciously clean— 
They’re integers on a balance sheet. 

They’re pure ideas 
Straight from the brain 
Of Monsanto. No Eve 

Or Adam, no worm ever nibbled 
On the likes of these Granny Smith. 
Somebody in a lab somewhere 

Must have mixed the chromosomal 
Brew from which they grew 
Till the day a robot picker 

Strafed their orchard’s leaves 
With metal fingers: 
Et voilà, aisle three, behold 

The apple sanitized as a baby 
Doll who only feigns 
Her pee and weeping

It’s a cyborg—half-malic, 
Half-plastic. A fantasy of nature 
Without the dirt, the maggots, 

Without death. But 
Despite the best efforts 
Of capital and machines, 

Death is with us, us real ones. 
Animal, vegetable. 
The rot leaks out, 

Spreading its stain like the black mold 
Parading over this produce 
Section’s popcorn ceiling tiles, 

A sort of Alexander leading his army 
Through the Gedrosian 
Desert perpetually. It’s on the move, 

Always coming for me, like that man 
At Hampi, 112 degrees when he stuck 
His face grinning into mine

As though he had my death 
In his back pocket like a bright idea, 
Or that crevasse-cut field where I tiptoed 

On my skis through the bleak, 
One way or another, coming for me, 
And it’s all right. 

Whoever talks to me 
About headstones, I say 
I prefer sky burial, 

Leave me outside for vultures 
And the like, to the extent permissible 
By Health and Human Services guidelines. 

Not for me some mahogany 
Sarcophagus or that waxy cast 
Slathered on by the beautician

At the funeral home 
Where they made my father 
Look like a Pez dispenser

Who ran out of Pez 
Laid down on a satin pillow 
And hence to the pretense

Of sleep. I’ll take the sky 
Any day, the mud 
Sweeter than whatever 

These apples on their Styrofoam 
Tray ever tasted 
In that God-forsaken factory 

Where they were shaped. 
An American apple, wrote Rilke, 
Is empty and indifferent, 

A pretend thing, 
A dummy of life. 
I’d rather try my luck 

With a bruise, take flesh 
Softly mush-spotted 
As an old woman’s thigh

Between my lips—feeding me 
By filling my cells 
With its memories of summer breeze. 

After all, I prefer myself 
Bat-winged or dewlapped, 
Crow-footed or smile-lined, 

To some confection that refuses decay. 
This way it’s plain to see 
I’ve had my years 

I lived here




“At the Price Chopper” from The Future © 2026 by Monica Ferrell. Appears with permission of Four Way Books. All rights reserved.