The Ghost Apple Girl
And then I was the Ghost Apple Girl
awoken to a chill hold of fantastical protocol,
bloom-cheeked, furred. Arrested
in my beauty like a sci-fi collectable.
Each bright day the world was snowed flat;
I was happy in my assignment – love
all but gone now, forgotten
as I made my way to the heirloom trees
which scored the hill like a Calvary.
A riddle, really, for the dropped fruit hung
still, gleaming on the branch.
So careful – with stop
motion movements – I gleaned
the glass globes from their stems,
hands
cold as bibles. Where the flesh
had slipped out, pirate-drunk,
a glittering pulp rose from the ground.
I carried home my delicate harvest.
But every morning: the inevitable flood
where the fire'd licked my yield down to nothing.
So I was compelled to visit, once over again,
the sparse orchard, content
in my belonging, my fingers bell-numb, singing.
Louise Peterkin is a poet from Edinburgh. In 2016 she was a recipient of a New Writers Award from the Scottish Book Trust in the poetry category. She is the co-editor, along with Rob A. Mackenzie, of Spark: Poetry and Art inspired by the Novels of Muriel Spark (Blue Diode Press, 2018). She is an assistant poetry editor for The Interpreter's House. Her poems have appeared in many publications, including The Dark Horse, The Glasgow Review of Books, Magma and The North, and her first collection of poetry, The Night Jar, is out now, published by Salt.