The maggot got into the apple
Eating through its side
Softening the flesh
It managed
To get
To the centre of its soul.
Pressing its soft body
Against its beating heart,
Against its very microkernel,
So that the lonely apple,
Dangling
From this oddly fruiting tree,
Mistook
The invasion
For friendship.

She spent hours each day
Talking with her maggot,
Her friend,
Her very own companion
Resident inside her,
When she should have been concentrating
On the
Warm rays of the sun
And the breezes
That blew by her face.

She spent hours
Each night
Listening
To what he had to say,
When she should have been sleeping
And concentrating
On growing ripe.

And then,
One day,
The maggot
Went away.
And all she had left
Was the infecting wound
That he had eaten
Into her body
And the fear,
That it may happen
All over again.



---Jib, Lucy Pugh House, Royal Oldham Hospital, 6.30 am, 02 Jul 2003