MONKS

Their tawny robes drink sunlight
each day as they shuffle the monastery grounds
slowly bleaching the fabric
so the elders’ garb pales like their hair
and the neophytes show darker colors

Their breakfast is blueberries wrapped in a mint leaf
their lunch is a spicy tea
most abstain from dinner once they have ascended
but the neophytes spoon communally from a pot of soup
it’s leeks and pepper and potatoes
an orchard grows nearby
apples swell with juice and fall into the dirt
the passersby are free to take from it
the monks will carve faces and sermons
and whatever crosses their mind into the apple flesh
as meditation
as a way of passing time

the eldest monk has a robe of virgin white
though it started tawny like the rest
and his sleeves are ragged tendrils dragging along the ground
thin white netted veins loosely affixed to one another
his eyes are clouds unblinking
each day he shuffles the monastery grounds
he never speaks
but he takes the long, sharp fingernail of his thumb
and he carves into the flesh of an apple
what he describes into the fruit is different each time
and he never shows anyone
but you can find them in the orchard
turning brown and crawling with ants
rotting into the soil to feed the future apples

a neophyte finds a decomposing apple on the ground
he fixes his dark eyes upon it
finds runic equations he doesn’t understand
he is very hungry
so he takes a bite of it and
vomits