Apollonia, My Love
What Moved the Judges
“This is a brilliantly written poem about love and intra/interpersonal struggles in the search for coexistence between the mind and the heart in an difficult ontological context.”
Dabbling in the debutante derisions of our art, I sketched you:
Woman by the marble gazebo, red roses fat in the early morning
moonlight, there is a hint of sparrows, dawn threatens to
overcome the vague surfaces of our regret. You said it was adequate,
enough, could I hang her in the foyer?
Always, I felt, always, I was reaching out to you with an
over-zealous gaze, the artist struck, and you
pretended to not carenfound
And I am struck by the ways in which you resemble an object:
the curves of your cheeks, the glow
that your eyes release, how the folds of your dress
shift from lavender to midnight by the temperature of
the sun.
And I am struck by when I create you, how:
I never see you, and the hints of melancholy and depth and
superstition in your silver-lidded eyes
are simply my own
Maybe this is why you cannot love me:
We are unable to see each other, like how
the sun misses the moonrise.
And maybe I should leave you, because I do not love you,
I love the way you look, the way you pretend, the
melancholy of symbols in my mind, you strike me
like a curl, or some Celtic insignia, the echo of home, a
touch of divinity slathered across your forehead. An eye threatens
to bloom there, the Mark of Cain shattered across your skull, or
something else.
If I strangle you, will you choke out a remembrance enough,
Out from crystal-encrypted lungs, jewels of a thoughtless truth,
gemstones enough, that I can forget you?
But I am not so strong.
You think it is funny, this endeavor of mine, and
you like the free art.
But I am caught in the awesome curves of your throat, the melding
grace of your languid fingers, wasted on men, meddling into the mature storms that are heteronormativity, I paddle out to sea, I am in love,
I am in love, I try to sketch you again.
You laugh, you are holding apples this time, you place them in a basket for
your two children.
“You are so sweet,” she says, and she kisses me on
the mouth, a pink bloom of hope, and she swipes my
touch off her lips.
“Such a good friend.
I will hang this in our kitchen of love.”
kitchen of love of apples and red and burnished sunlight and red-checked tablecloths,
apple pies and Monroe paintings, and a cutesy slogan for love. She heads there:
he is in the window.
The husband hunches forwards, huddled and hindersome in the horrific pursuit
of employment, he smiles wryly. She shows him the portrait of apples as if
she made it herself, and the babies run by her side, Adonis revolutionized, I
am alone, I am alone, I am alone. I sit in the slats of distance far beyond
her comprehension, and I wonder if this is what it feels like
to be in love.
Yuna Kang is a queer, half-deaf, Korean-American writer based in Northern California. She loves postcards, crows, God(x), and cats. Yuna is also the recipient of the 2024 New Feathers Award.