Apples
by and published in Edition Three of Pomegranate
Wet blackberry sky; stone-blank moon dragged low.
Air thickens and saddens and sweetens with night:
Shy apple-scent lilting, a sharp delight.
Unseen fruits trail into gloom; fragrant ghosts.
That orchard of mine is overripe now.
Hear the ancient branches sag? Let them hang.
They can’t recall the flushed petals that sang,
graceful as moths, laced veils brushing on boughs.
I stood here, at this window, in the spring;
The flowers, light froth, like foam on the sea.
Shaken by a breeze, lifted close to me
and swept past into the unending
distance. Gone. I am sick of the sight
of useless, pungent, uneaten apples.
And instead, think of a stream that dapples
through grass. My blossoms, loose snow in flight.
Annabella Massey
Annabella Massey was one of the commended poets for the 2006 Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, and on the final shortlist for the Christopher Tower Poetry Competition 2007. She has poems forthcoming in the next Tower Poetry anthology. She is currently in her second year reading English Literature and Creative Writing at Warwick University.