Turning Forty: What I Say, What I Know

I say no sex is worth dying for, no man
worth living with—nevermind for—
I say Caution comma is my new first name,
my old first name, my last—
I say not even Death will know me.
I know the first bite of any apple’s best:
the one the mouth’s juices leap to meet,
the one whose sweet sting laves the tongue’s ache,
the bite against which hunger breaks—
and the hard-won grace in being bitten.

April Ossmann