Them Apples

"How do you like. . ." The phrase begins.

Every couple days my dad enters the kitchen with one or two apples in his hand. "I want you to test these? Are they ready?"

I never take just one bite. It seems wrong somehow that these fruit are just barely worth one taste. I store them in my lunchbox. For tomorrow, or the next day, until he asks again.

"Them. . ." A one word middle with so many lines and layers. The direct reference to the effectiveness of sameness. Planting. Pruning. Spraying. Choosing. Picking.

"Apples?" The phrase ends with an object to objectify. The fruit can only stand in as it sometimes stands in for itself, or something like it.

Apple already knows it is both a reference point and incomplete. In Hebrew and French, apple from a tree may stand alone. However, the word 'apple' becomes a stand in to add 'dirt', thus centering a European fruit and adding the Americas' potato.

"How do you like them apples?" The phrase covers all manner of 'American', from Johnny Appleseed mythology to apple pie.