Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.

It’s all
an elaborate pun:
the red peel of ribbon
twisted tightly about the bun
at the crown of her apple-

                     round head;
                the ribbon coming loose in the real
apple-peel she allows to dangle
     from her lifted hand; the table
          on which a basket of red

                     apples
                waits to be turned into more
white-fleshed apples in a water-
     filled pail on the floor;
          her apron that fills and falls

                     empty,
                a lapful of apples piling on
like the apron itself, the napkin,
     the hems of her skirts – each a skin
          layered over her heart, just as he

                     who has
                painted her at her knife
paints the brush that puts life
     in her, apple of his eye: if
          there’s anything on earth but this

                     unbroken
                concentration, this spiral
of making while unmaking while
     the world goes round, neither the girl
          nor he has yet looked up, or spoken.