Tag: Ann E. Michael

Small Rocks by Ann E. Michael

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Small Rocks

At the park’s playground
I fumed in my loneliness
sad and angered
at what, I can no longer recall.
But I remember the way
I flung small rocks
across the field
the ache in my right arm
a relief, an expulsion,
pitching away at the fury
that gnawed at my neck
and grappled with my ribs—
jealousy, sorrow, fear.
Wildly I whirled my unspent
anger until one of those
quartzite missiles struck
my sister’s best friend
behind the ear.
How the rage in me emptied
my body drained into
stillness, cold with horror,
shuddered at what
anger does, knowing I
could not undo that damage.

*

Ann E. Michael lives in eastern Pennsylvania. Her latest poetry collection is Abundance/Diminishment. Her book The Red Queen Hypothesis won the 2022 Prairie State Poetry Prize; she’s the author of Water-Rites (2012) and six chapbooks. She is a hospice volunteer, writing tutor, and chronicler of her own backyard who maintains a long-running blog at https://annemichael.blog/

Life Span by Ann E. Michael

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Life Span

Isn’t it a fine strange thing
how little information we can glean
about our future surely-numbered days?
How many snowfalls? How many
restless nights, or long drives
to how many friends’ homes?
Is it possible to count
the scores of leaves that fell
in each of the witnessed autumns?
Can these be measured: the light
sun shower that startles midday,
fox leaping like a lamb in the meadow,
someone’s recording of Rigoletto
distantly woven into the drone
of a diesel engine?

We are born and find that we live
in a world of water-bears and
wolverines, tire irons and railroad
tracks, shale, gas, stem cells,
sycamore trees. We categorize.
We kiss. We weather our own climate,
mark out our joys. We span everything
resembling a ravine, pleased with our
ingenuity. And then comes death,
which, like the hermit thrush,
has whistled all along, half-hidden,
as though it knew a fine strange thing.

*

Ann E. Michael lives in eastern Pennsylvania. Her latest poetry collection is Abundance/Diminishment. Her book The Red Queen Hypothesis won the 2022 Prairie State Poetry Prize; she’s the author of Water-Rites (2012) and six chapbooks. She is a hospice volunteer, writing tutor, and chronicler of her own backyard who maintains a long-running blog at https://annemichael.blog/

 

Passover by Ann E. Michael

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Passover

The first holiday without,
grief burns like anger.
Irritant. Tough fibers
scraping at skin raise a rash,
sore during celebration.
Empty ritual this year.
Empty place at the table–
bitter, bitter herbs.

*

Ann E. Michael’s upcoming chapbook is Strange Ladies, slated for publication in 2022 (Moonstone Poetry); she is the author of Water-Rites and six other chapbooks. She lives in eastern Pennsylvania and blogs at https://annemichael.blog.

Unwelcome by Ann E. Michael

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Unwelcome

The caller
was
a stranger
soliciting
I don’t
know what
I told her
this
is not
a good time
my father
is dying
and
I hung up.
Now
as night
recedes
I find my
self awake
I think of
him
dying
and how
I was
unkind
to that young
woman
in a call
center
a stranger
I failed
to welcome
into
my heart.

*
Ann E. Michael lives in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, slightly west of where the Lehigh River meets the Delaware. Her most recent collection of poems is Barefoot Girls. Her next book, The Red Queen Hypothesis, will be published sometime in 2021. More info at www.annemichael.wordpress.com