​Apolo en la Fragua de Vulcano, by Melissa Tyndall

Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan, by Diego Velázquez (Spain), 1630.

​Apolo en la Fragua de Vulcano

I could not forge her heart. Apollo 
attested to it, index finger raised, heat 

blazing the words through my body--
my brother, sheathed in Vulcan armour,

pressed against my wife’s naked body,
like a pearl spooned against its half-shell.

Apollo, radiant as an ember, brought irony
to the term. To forge— to hammer out

hardness, shape her as my own. For years, 
I thought love was the coal found burning 

on the shoreline. It rose from ashes,
inextinguishable and strong as iron.

Melissa Tyndall

Melissa Tyndall's poems and award-winning articles have appeared in Number One, Prism international, Red Mud Review, Words + Images, Sixfold, Gamut, and various newspapers. She is also the former adviser of the award-winning student literary magazine, Squatter’s Rites. Melissa is currently an assistant professor of English in Nashville, Tennessee, where she lives with her partner, Matt, their daughter, and two cats.