Horse Apples

1984 (modified in 2011)

Does anyone eat horse-apples?

It would take a Spartan horse to down that

tough pulp and sticky milk.

What they do best is sit in the cool grass-

if you pick them up

they leave dents like empty eye sockets.

These green globes in Old Town

look just like their distant cousins back in Dallas.

Those horse-apples could sure roll down Cole Avenue,

and when we threw them

they could sure crash through

those street car windows

terrifying the folks who sat in the back.

We were oblivious to what broken glass

could do to skin and eyes.

Oblivious to what it could do to human spirits.