Fake Life

Bzon apples are plucked straight from the tree,
a harvest of soft juice-injected fruit
to bury the teeth in and sate the buds in flavor --
you can taste the bubbling laboratory,
the experimental greenhouse, the willing hybridization,
sweet as the maiden's smile dimpled on the apple's rind

and remember how, not so many years back,
foliage here was nothing but stunted, salty brush --
fruit came shriveled and tasteless from Earth --
and now, what didn't flower laid out a banquet --
touch, smell, sight, taste --
you could even hear the winning crunch --
in one glorious bite,
all senses accounted for --

Life gets more normal here by the day --
robots look like family --
sunsets are the latest in reproductions --
the air is swimming in oxygen --
even in the apples are in on it - perfect skin, succulent flesh,
and like everything else -- no core