Poem: Apple Tinsel

Apple Tinsel

Words: Sheila McMullin
Image: Neely Johnson
QuailBellMagazine.com

The tinsel in the apple trees
asked me to fall in love.

Perhaps, it was just you
were the nearest

for that stabbing arrow in my eye
to shift my weight into your lap

and believe it is with you I am love.
Perhaps, it was the tether moon

gleaming in the tinsel
with the ripe apple smell

to unhinge an ambit of love.
Perhaps, when I sleep,

and you are in the scene
but you have always been me

I ask a different question about love.
Stitch patches of water onto my body,

entice the landscape with what I know
of enraptured cupids, unnerved fate,

sweet apple meat and half-moon imprints,
of my mother and father of

a love.
Blooming a ginger flower,

the green ginger root wrapped in plastic
is trying to do what it has always done before.

I put the ginger flower in my mouth
and let orchards bloom inside me. 

Sheila McMullin curates the feminist and artist resource website, MoonSpit Poetry, where a list of her publications can also be found. She is the Website Assistant for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts where she writes the column “Spotlight On!” celebrating literary magazines that publish a diverse representation of writers. She is a Contributing Editor for ROAR Magazine. Her poetry collection, Like Water, has received notable attention from Ahsahta Press, New Delta Review, and Black Lawrence Press chapbook competitions. She works as an after-school creative writing and college prep instructor, and volunteers at her local animal rescue. She holds her M.F.A. from George Mason University.

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