Apollo

Near Apollo I am coy and shy.
His compassion is causal –
His blush blinds with the glint of winter,

Under a thick tress of silver, a voice glitters.
He is so soft-spoken, so Apollo
In his verve and love –

The ruins shimmer
Amber among candles and so I smile.
By morning, he surges

Like a bird of chrome and smoke over
Slow snow-covered oceans –
He is his own inside the myth.

I wait for his exquisite
Wing strike after a white sun rises –
Never have I seen a sunrise

All in white! My frozen skin candies
To apricot syrup, my nerves
Spring to tender ginger roots,

My heart jewels to a jade apple –
I sing at my celestial working.
I suck a honey lollipop,

An ultraviolet star tucked
At my ear, my hair dark as a raven’s want –
By Apollo’s touch none

Are spared, the evening stone ritual
Burns to azure, its despair
A distance in the quiet spur.

I trace his last descent, my pale
Fingertip a silk comet burst into flame,
And look at all that red –

Holly R. Appling lives in Canada. Her poems have appeared in various printand online publications. More of her writing is at www.hollyappling.wordpress.com.

Find more by Holly R. Appling in the Author Index.

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