When Magritte Wasn't Looking, by ​Maria Lisella

The Son of Man, by Rene Magritte (Belgium) 1964

​When Magritte Wasn’t Looking

When is an apple an apple?

When it is not a painting of an apple.

Or, when its high chartreuse makes us disbelieve its waxen sheen, and size, larger than the palace behind it.

It tells us something.

That, it is an apple overgrown, overcome with itself, so vast, it drowns all sense of time, emits
a faint perfume from the skin still sealed tight.

Compare this to a baked apple.

Its skin shriveling as sugar bubbles out of its core

Gurgles from its bulbous green body,
trembles in the heat of a roasting pan,
settles once it hits the cool air,

its pulp ready to receive the spoon that scoops out its heart.

​Maria Lisella

Featured on The Poet and the Poem at the Library of Congress, Maria Lisella is the sixth Queens Poet Laureate, an Academy of American Poets Fellow and has visited 62 countries. Recent work appears in: Stronger Than Fear: Poems of Empowerment, Compassion, and Social Justice; and NYC through the Eyes of the Poets Who Live Here and in First Literary Review-east, LIPS, New Verse News. Her collections include: Thieves in the Family (NYQ Books),  Amore on Hope Street (Finishing Line Press) and Two Naked Feet (Poets Wear Prada). She curates the Italian American Writers Association readings, is Poetry Editor for VIA. https://poets.org/poet/maria-lisella