anna katherine

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Salt, Silver, and Blood

See you soon!

If it’s been over ten years since you last tried
black licorice, you may now love it.
If you come across a bus stop in mid-December
someone may have written i heart you with
their finger on the window’s condensation.

It may be fresh enough you can tell
where she pressed her forefinger down
hardest and whether or not she wore gloves.

It may be that what you think is love
Is no more so than a clump of pink insulation
hanging strangely in a trashed storefront
is a freshly butchered ham.

If you sleep like a manger scene
boxed up in the attic for half a century
you may be in love, have some rare
form of bipolar, or both, plus really thirsty.
There is an explanation for the river’s
freezing only at the mouth of its tributary,
translucent necklace of ice.

It may be you are actually as alone as you feel,
that it will only exponentiate.
That this is what scared you so much in the darkness.

(–”Licorice” by Daniel Hales)

All men, however highly educated,
retain some superstitious inklings. (–H.G. Wells)

(Margot Fonteyn)

Yes, it’s daily
that we move into each other—but this morning
I was separate even from myself—
my hands were shovels, I had mosquito netting for hair,
and the insect beating against the night
was my heart. My name was hallow
and the sky was made of shale when

I walked into a part of morning
I’ve never seen: the sky still heavy, still
smoldering with the nightmares of others,
the drunkenness and sorrow rising like dew, like fog,
like smoke back into the clouds. Suddenly,
my face was wet with it. I wanted to lie down
with it. To rest against the almost exhausted night.

Uncertain of what to do there
I started dividing the layers, the sediment,
thinking: Usually I sleep through his sadness.

And the morning asking: Why do you keep track
of the middle of the day when you should be
waxing the moon? How can these young fragile branches
be left out in the darkness, and who set that darkness
wandering inside your heart? Who can your love ignite,
like this, like kerosene?

And then the sky lit the morning.
And then I went in to set my own house on fire.
And then I lay down next to you:
a body filling with feathers or with snow
asking: and who are you that my love can light
like this, like kerosene.

(–Olena Kalytiak Davis, “Like Kerosene”)

I have been studying the difference
between solitude and loneliness
telling the story of my life
to the clean white towels taken warm from the dryer.
I carry them through the house
as though they were my children
asleep in my arms.

(“white towels” by richard jones)