Two Poems by Anna Evans

Grounded

Cast off in this hotel I’m wired. The skies
post interference; lies become the truth.
We overlapped our hours like kissing mouths;
now weeks divide our bodies. Hypnotized
inside the blizzard globe, I recognize
ourselves in every snowdrift’s negative
capability. I can’t get south
today. I make truth over into lies,
protecting truth. It was like this, like that.
As in the museum, the transferred drawing caught
our eyes: how subjects sensed the changes of
angle but lost the depths. I wore your hat
to leave the airport. On it, snowflakes fought
the drive to merge, but melted. Yes, it’s love.

In England

We do not glorify abstractions:
keeping them lower case
helps to subdue disrespect,
color “hope”
more attainable.
A lack of conformity
separates us, thin layer of grease:
when a door needs opening
the key turns
and the lock won’t stick.

We remember walled cities fall
to implausible tricks.

People practice the national myths—
chin up, stiff upper lip—
with secrets tucked
under newspaper arms.

We talk politics in pubs,
more faithful to football
teams than spouses.

Stereotypes exist,
but the truth is a zebra crossing:
black-white-black-white-black.

About the author

Anna Evans, a British citizen residing in New Jersey, earned her MFA from Bennington College. Conversant in both French and German, Anna has traveled…

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Issue 02 · December 2008

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