WHITE WATER
Three-legged fear, are you
the she-wolf slouching
at my door? Maimed
and maiming? This morning
I could smell your breath, hear
your jaw lipping the scruff.
But what harrows me most?
Mutilation death
or .
Does anyone
sleep
through the night?
I dream always
about him
the boy of my dreams.
Wake up
unsatisfied.
Again.
I always worry about
the wrong things: de-
fenestration, vampires,
my overbite.
Some mornings
I ask
for what I want.
Coffee in bed
a bouquet of tulips
a published poem.
At the margin
on the verge
of something
intemperate that
feels like prayer
we can be safe only
if I perform
three impossible tasks.
Or bind you with a spell.
Mid-June, the northern tributaries
are fast, fanged. White
capped. rapacious.
One bar
of service.
How long
will you be gone?
EURIDICE, LOOKING BACK
You couldn’t stop showing off, could you,
Orfeo? They fell
all over you, fell for you and your magic
fingers plucking,
strumming, coaxing, teasing. When you
thought I was playing
hard to get you were bitten, you ached for
me, moved heaven
and hell to wed me. Listen, Orfeo, you
were never my choice. So
caught up in your melody you failed to see
that I was different
from the others, not a maiden among
maidens, but a maiden
who loved maidens, one in particular.
Remember that day when
you thought I was lost? I was with her
among the foxgloves,
forget-me-nots. I fell hard, smitten by the
goddess, her golden tongue.
My so-called death was a way down and a
way out. But you couldn’t
leave well enough alone, and when you
came calling, my name on your lips,
you misunderstood. I wanted you to turn,
to look back, for
the first and final time, I wanted you to see
me—then to let me go.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
ARCHER LUNDY (aka Anne Archer) is a musician and poet who is reinventing herself. Her 2021 publications include 3 poems in Entropy Magazine (11 January) and 'Danby Lake' in The Eunoia Review (25 May). 'Admit Darius' is scheduled tp appear in Sledgehammer Lit this coming August, and 'Mad Men' has been accepted for publication by In The Mood (Fall, 2021).
Beautiful
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