When it fell from a wooden box
stored on a cellar shelf, she explained
how it worked why it never worked
the way it was intended, its blade

biting too deep into the fruit’s soft flesh
and turning the orb to a baluster
upright on a lathe; yet having been consigned
to history, the handle still cranked

and the gears responded, spinning
pronged spikes like compass needles.
The blade had gone rusty and if used
left a trail of blood around the girth

of all it mapped on an apple globe,
the awful history that brought us here.