The
Fateful
Apple
Venus Thrash
Foreword by:
Dr. Keith D. Leonard
An Imprint of Hawkins Publishing Group
P.O. Box 34726
Los Angeles, CA 90034
www.hawkinspublishinggroup.com
This is a creative work. Names, characters, businesses, places, events
and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used in
a creative manner.
Copyright ©2014 by Venus Thrash
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or
part in any form. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher,
except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
Cover photo art courtesy of © Macchia | Dreamstime.com
ISBN 13:978-0-9835356-6-9 (E-Book)
ISBN: 13:978-0-9835356-5-2 ( Soft Cover)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014932416 (Print)
Manufactured in the United States
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
VIGIL
for Floyd
Say artificial blessing
to late night bowl of cereal.
Hold vigil over computer
keyboard as if it’s Floyd
wasting on death’s bed
in AIDS-induced coma
while Antonio & Todd
sing ‘Happy Birthday’
over red velvet cake
Floyd will never get to eat.
In a cross-town apartment
blessed by Bearden,
Baldwin, Miles, Muddy,
Arthur reconciles past sex
life with sunken face in mirror.
Hollow cheeks exhale thin air.
Fury rumbles the corners of his room.
Back home, sandalwood incense cascades
the apartment in sweet smelling smoke.
Coltrane’s Isis & Osiris intercourse
in the windless night.
Decide for tenth time
54
not to cut hair after all.
Roll another joint. Don’t light it.
Try not to think of candles
burning all night for Floyd,
flesh taut on Arthur’s bones—
light it anyway. Just two hits
& promise myself
not to finish.
55
TWIRL
Hershey Kiss-colored Joseph,
throwback Diana Ross eyes,
the only boy majorette
in the Mighty Wolves marching band,
donned sharp white slacks, crisp white shirt.
His grandmother sewed him a green-sequined vest.
Batons spun in his hands as propellers
on a twin-engine jet—
high flung over taunts, jeers—
poised on the tips of his precise fingers
while he balanced upside down on one leg.
Joseph whirled around in a chartreuse satin gown
on Homecoming Day. A ‘Miss Band’
jade-glittered sash emblazoned his chest.
Silver wands wheeling beyond
sparrows & clouds, snatched from mid-air
like a magician’s trick while Joseph
twirled furiously into the sparkling sun.
57
RINCON, GEORGIA I
Turn onto the backcountry roads
& the journey spins from red-brick homes
to tin-roof shacks.
Ripened rows of cornstalks lean
into a reclining sun.
Horses sprawl over grassy plains.
Cows swat flies with their tails. Remember—
the last time you made this trip,
renting rather than risking the faithful clunker.
Still, the borrowed car sputters & dies
long before Grandma’s house creeps
into view. So you must knock on the old
lady’s door— the one you’ve called Miss Daisy—
ever since she made you walk around
to the back when you were five—
too small to know ways of the South.
59