I was sitting alone in a bar on my birthday 
when the queen on stage wearing eyelashes 
longer than my hair gave me three jumbo apples. 
"One for your lover, two for you," s/he said, 
and placed them heavy into my small hands. 
So with veins rising to my skin's surface 
and fingertips reaching for each other 
to wrap around the apples, 
I carried them all, all the way home, 
until one uncertain apple slid from my hands 
and scraped against the wall of my house-- 
the wall which is grainy and hard like dried sugar. 

I was asleep until you came to my room 
and woke me up with my birthday gift 
cupped in your hands-- 
two miniature fruits: one was a baby 
tangelo, which was my favorite, 
because it looked like a cross between 
a starfruit and a navel orange; 
then there were two cherries 
that I tried to separate with my fingers, 
but they were connected by their stems 
and enclosed in an orange skin. 

On a talk show I saw siamese twins 
who had two brains, two hearts, but one body. 
They were circus freaks.  The surgeon 
wanted to separate them 
(which would cause one to die). 
Which one will it be? 
The audience was concerned about their sex lives: 
"How do you have sex?  You can't, can you?" 
"Yes."  Yes we can.  So I'm giving you 
an unscratched fruit, along with a cherry stem 
that I tied into a knot without using my hands.