Core Of It All

 “He had his testing today,” Mother said,
Dishes clinking against each other 
In the soapy water of the kitchen sink.
I pulled an apple from the wicker basket
That had always sat upon the table.
I shined the fruit against my shirt’s sleeve
And tossed the fragile snack into the air.
Quickly, I snached it back from my mother’s worry.  
“I, I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do,
He wants to quit his job, and I want what’s best,”
I rolled the apple around my palm,
Searching for the juiciest spot for me to taste.
“I know we cant live without his paycheck,
But if he goes on as he is now…”
She choked, white knuckles gripping a chipped plate
Under the water of the kitchen sink.
I bit into the apple, sound echoing
Against the silence that spread between us.
I got up to sit by the window,
Pushing aside the curtain that was always drawn.
Almost hysterical, mother turned to me
As fresh light filtered into the dim kitchen.
Her soap-covered hand gripped my arm
And her eyes pleaded with my stone heart.
I looked down upon her, slowly ripping away
Each wall she had carefully constructed
To protect her own wavering faith.
Her soul stood before me, naked and exposed
Like the apple seeds that glistened at me
From the flesh of the bitten fruit
All I could do was look down at her
As the water in the kitchen sink spilled over.
How dare she look at me with those selfish eyes.
She was not the only one whose tears fell
Like the apple’s juice that slipped from my tongue
Yes her lover, her friend, her husband and my father
Had fallen prey to the Huntington’s dance;
He had begun to change into a distorted  
Image of the man he had been before:
No longer did he smile,
No longer did he love,
No longer did he care.
And though my heart fought against that idea,
It’s smooth skin became terribly bruised
When it found that my father
No longer knew my name,
And it rotted when it found
That my father could no longer
Remember those days
Where he had lifted me on his shoulders
So I could reach the juiciest of apples
On the tallest of the apple trees.
So when he finally forgot my Mother’s name
And she in turn began pleading
To regain what had been lost,
I felt no sympathy.
None for the woman who could not grasp
That what falls from the tree
Is in turn eaten by insects
She could not understand,
And the flies that filled my mouth
Would not allow me to explain it to her
So I pushed her quivering hand away
And tossed the finished apple core into the trash.