This Family Called Apple, by M.J. Iuppa

Apple Family 2, by Georgia O'Keeffe (USA), 1920.

This Family Called Apple

Plumped up and pinched,
rosy-cheeks of a kind,

ample curves, breasts
and buttocks nestled

side by side, silent 
picture of health,

not knowing 
what could be growing 

wrong on the inside. When
lost in thought in the orchard

I plucked their glossy bodies– 
let them fall into my canvas

apron– ignoring your warnings– 
invisible bruises show up after 

the snap of leaf and stem. Now
which will go first?  Taut

skin resists, shines
against the bite

that changed paradise– 
sudden waters, flesh, seeds,

unlocked stars– the secrets 
of many in this chaste household.

M.J.Iuppa


First published in Language of Color: Writers Respond to the Paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe (Big Pencil Press).

M.J. Iuppa lives on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario. She is Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor at St. John Fisher College. Her lyric essays have appeared in In Brief: Short Takes on the Personal, edited by Mary Paumier Jones and Judith Kitchen (Norton, 1999), Short Takes: Brief Encounters with Contemporary Nonfiction, edited by Judith Kitchen (Norton, 2005) and Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction, edited by Judith Kitchen and Dinah Lenney (Norton, 2015), and her recently released third full length poetry collection Small Worlds Floating, Cherry Grove Collections, August 2016.You may follow her on mjiuppa.blogspot.com