DEATH Poem: Apples by the Sea, by Jana Tvorogova

Gray, like her blue veins
is the sea
in which she tries to drown.

Or would have tried
if this were one of her nine lives.
And since it is not,
she has no choice
but to sit by grottos, to sit and sit
and to cut apples into a ceramic bowl.

Some time ago, the bowl read
“you are my star”
and a little star
with tiny legs was depicted on it.

And some time ago, it wasn’t a bowl either
but a small flower vase.

When the flower vase broke and the flowers died
she glued the shards into a bowl
in which now lay pieces of apple.

She places a piece into her mouth
and throw another always into the waves
that knocked against the rocks of the grotto.

Sharing the apple with the sea, she says:
“Keep them for me, in case I come back.”