Poetry by Grace Rossman

    Mike Fritcher CC



​
Crab Apple Tree


You were the teacher of epic, ten-step secret handshakes,
And referee of games of Concentration Sixty-Four.
You were always the look we were going for;
Crab apple red was our new black, came back in fashion every fall.
When the boys played springtime kickball, we watched your buds burst into bloom,
Blossoms like a million, tiny, wind-blown, rosy butterflies;
In the twists of our hair, pink glitter plastic wings paid tribute.

When I held first grade recess forums in your branches, you’d contribute.
From the crook of your elbow, I led second, third, fourth grade summits,
Tiny troublemakers plotting out our fantasy rebellions,
You knew we’d back out of our walkouts, and chicken out at the last second,
But still you heard out every scheme and held it close like it was precious.

You said remember these moments; you said our protests would change the world someday–

You used to giggle at the dirty jokes I learned from Older Brother,
And when Tattle Tale told her dad told the teacher told my mother,
It was your forbidden fruit that told my shame to fall like leaves;
A child only seems rotten when a grownup has forgotten what it felt like to be one.

As if we all weren’t seeds once.
Little Girl Police also must have gathered in trees once,
Holding summits, raised a ruckus, buzzed about birds and bees once--
Little Girl Police must have perched like flocks of chickadees,
Little beaks trying on someone’s older sister’s lip gloss,
Contraband changing hands, waxy pigment, stealing glimpses 
Of what they would ripen into; learned to bud by budding with you.
Years and years of little fearless, blooming, rabble-rousing ring leaders,
One for every ring inside your trunk; I was just one--
I was just fine.

So many times, only you were sane enough to remember
That when you tell a girl she’s a bad apple long enough,
She’ll start to smell like one;
Tell her parents to be careful or she’ll spoil the whole bunch, 
Til her own name becomes a sour taste on her tongue--
Your apples showed me Girl is not synonymous with Sweet.
I am not sorry that I wasn’t bred to be easy to eat;
You always taught me that if they don’t like how you taste, they should stop biting.
As if by growing we’re implicitly inviting them to pluck; you taught me Fuck That.
You taught me No.
You taught me the problem lies not with the apple,
But with a world that tries to swallow all the little women whole.

​


Grace Rossman is a poet and expressive arts therapist living in Salem, Massachusetts. She received a BA from Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Critical Geography, Political Ecology, and Globalization Studies, and she went on to receive her MA in Clinical Counseling with a specialization in expressive arts therapy from Lesley University. Throughout her life, Grace has written and performed poetry and has taught spoken word poetry in schools, after school programs, and community centers. Grace is interested in the power of words to transform and heal individuals and cultures alike, and she seeks to explore these dimensions of the creative process in her writing and her work as a therapist. Her work centers around themes of femininity, healing, and connecting with our shared human experience in an increasingly divided world.