The lingua franca around here
is produce. In the morning they arrive
in droves, whole crops of apples
drifting down the receiving ramp,
packed breast to breast,
these stubborn and hopeful things.

Money and I unload the shipment silently,
half under the thought fog of morning,
half under the shy recoil of accented speech,
but we speak in our own way:

I offer the fruit to my coworker
and she inspects its flesh,
if its skin is firm it is prideful,
Money says Good la which means
that they will be introduced to the floor,
their hope replacing the browning pockmarks
of last week, their dreaming lives
in their sustenance.

But if they are failing,
Money says No good which means that
they are returned to the turning dirt
of their motherland. I remember them
only from the sweet moisture
left on my hand.

Sixteen dollars will pass
and I will be one hour closer
to becoming an ancestor.
I’ll wait for a voice to call Yun
from the many tributaries of aisles
and I know 

to bring myself to it,
let myself be held in it’s calling
by reaching into the container,
I’ll place an apple
in a place among apples.

Photo by Hans Eiskonen on Unsplash