Adam’s apple

This piece was written in 10 minutes in response to a Poking Around Poetry podcast. It remains unfinished but kept here, because I think I’ll want to work on it more later.

The prompts/ideas discussed in the show were: locker rooms, spas, ageing, women, nudity, shame, Adam and Eve, apples, kings, jesters, celebrities, radical vulnerability, clowns.

Adam’s Apple

It’s easy to slip from the knife edge,

fall one way into a cavern of ugly shame

or the other way into glossy confidence,

flashing and sagging for all to consume.

Make the girls uncomfortable

with your wayward curves.

One bite of the apple and you’ll conform

but turn away from it’s rosy red skin and

know you will be punished

for your sin.

I had an idea but it hasn’t yet got to the point where it’s clear. I may have even contradicted myself. And the metaphor of the apple could be stronger I think. I don’t have a clear image either. It needs work. But there are seeds here.