and considers the bruise he’s inflicted on the fruit as he picks it up, not sure if he can get away with putting it back in the display. Where would it even fit? All the apples have moved now. And was anyone looking? Someone is always looking. Ted knows this by now. He wonders what people know about his childhood. About the dead squirrel he poked with a stick that one time when he was eight. It was hot outside—but not hot like it is now—and the squirrel already had maggots in its furry little belly. Maggots. Ted considers his apple. It’s his apple now, even if he puts it back. The impact cannot be undone, even as he places it toward the back, hoping that there isn’t too much dirt from the floor being transferred into the pile of—what kind of apples are these even? Ah, they’re Fujis. Ted doesn’t really like Fujis, anyway. He eyes a crate of peaches. He knows where those come from.

E. Kristin Anderson is a poet, Starbucks connoisseur, and glitter enthusiast living in Austin, Texas. She is the editor of Come as You Are, an anthology of writing on 90s pop culture (Anomalous Press), and Hysteria: Writing the female body (Sable Books, forthcoming). Kristin is the author of nine chapbooks of poetry including A Guide for the Practical Abductee (Red Bird Chapbooks), Pray, Pray, Pray: Poems I wrote to Prince in the middle of the night (Porkbelly Press), Fire in the Sky (Grey Book Press), 17 seventeen XVII (Grey Book Press), and Behind, All You’ve Got (Semiperfect Press, forthcoming). Kristin is an assistant poetry editor at The Boiler and an editorial assistant at Sugared Water. Once upon a time she worked nights at The New Yorker. Find her online at EKristinAnderson.com and on twitter at @ek_anderson.