Tag: Laura Ann Reed

Three Poems by Laura Ann Reed

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What She Wanted

She chides her father’s ghost
for his failure
to outlive her mother.
For going along
with her mother’s decision
that what the furnace refused to take of him
would be carried out in a boat
and scattered in the bay under the Golden Gate.
She’d wanted to have a metal vessel filled
with what remained of her father
to empty into the waters near her home.
She knows that to let go of these grievances
would be to lose him. (I only
wanted, she tells him, to hold onto you,
only wished you’d let
me be the one to know you.)

*

Ostinato

Let me go, my father says.
And when his doctor pulls the tubes
he’s a fish flailing on a riverbank.
How strange it is to stand
so close to this.
When wrenched from its world
does a fish know sorrow?
That summer at the lake
I reeled in a bluegill,
a single fin pinned by the hook.
I couldn’t bear the beauty,
the staring eye. Its belly cool
against my palm I lifted
out the barb, felt the heart’s alarm.
Then I watched the disturbance
on the water’s surface
disappear. Absence holds the music
of a lake lapping at the shore—
a low note that goes on and on.

*

Fear

Older now, what she fears
is the gate swinging open
in a distant field grown nearer.
It’s not her own footsteps
across the stones and windblown grass
that fill her with dread, but those
of the man who positions
his chair next to hers on the porch
to look at the moon.
She can’t say what frightens her more—
the thought of seeing him approach
the weathered boards,
or the vision of herself alone
under an uncertain sky.

*

Laura Ann Reed, a San Francisco Bay Area native, taught modern dance and ballet at the University of California, Berkeley before working as a leadership development trainer at the San Francisco headquarters of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the United States, Canada and Britain. She is the author of the chapbook, Shadows Thrown, (Sungold Editions, 2023). Laura and her husband live in the Pacific Northwest.

In the Darkened Pane by Laura Ann Reed

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In the Darkened Pane

From my house I watch evening sift down
through the blackberry, winter-bare.
My father isn’t anywhere
I can touch, or brush dust and leaves
from the letters of a name
I once wanted to lose, wanting
to lose my history. I tried to step away
from the long disgrace—
ghosts and shadows handed
down. I was the only one of seven
pushed into the light who refused to die.
Night is now claiming
the juniper’s blue-green needles.
A woman’s face is unreadable
in the darkened pane. Harp strings
plucked by the wind’s fingers.

*

Laura Ann Reed, a San Francisco Bay Area native, taught modern dance and ballet at the University of California, Berkeley before working as a leadership development trainer at the San Francisco headquarters of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the United States, Canada and Britain. She is the author of the chapbook, Shadows Thrown, (Sungold Editions, 2023). Laura and her husband live in the Pacific Northwest.

Child Fears, 1956 by Laura Ann Reed

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Child Fears, 1956
                       —After Jim Harrison

Jellyfish. Egg whites. False teeth.
Undertows. Mean kids. Bomb drills.
The neighbors’ dog that bit off my kitten’s head.
Old T.V. newsreels of Nazis. Polio.
My aunt with the goiter and bulging eyes.
Snakes on the fire trail. Bobcats in the canyon.
Bees in the grass. Cat poop in the sandbox.
Walk-in closets. Rip tides. The circus.
My grandfather’s open coffin.
The flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz.
Mussorgsky’s The Night on Bald Mountain.
Pictures of missing children on milk cartons.
The shadow of my hand on the wall.
Falling into the hole they dug for my grandfather.

*

Laura Ann Reed, a San Francisco Bay Area native, taught modern dance and ballet at the University of California, Berkeley before working as leadership development trainer at the San Francisco headquarters of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the United States, Canada and Britain. She is the author of the chapbook, Shadows Thrown, (Sungold Editions, 2023). Laura and her husband live in the Pacific Northwest.

On Any Given Day by Laura Ann Reed

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On Any Given Day

despite all else, delight can swoop
down unannounced. Like these black-capped
chickadees—their bright, staccato calls
insisting on existence. The pizzicato
footfalls ferrying their feathered frames
to a geography of sprinkler-fed rivulets.
A terrain of diminutive lakes.
The way they splash, preen, toil—
plucking worms, beetles, seeds
from the saturated soil.
Despite all else, the beauty
of that greed. The marvel
of those beating hearts.

*

Laura Ann Reed taught modern dance and ballet at the University of California, Berkeley prior to working in the capacity of leadership development trainer at the San Francisco headquarters of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Her work has been widely anthologized and published in literary journals. Her chapbook, Shadows Thrown, is scheduled for publication on February 26, 2023 by Sungold Editions. A San Francisco Bay Area native, Laura resides with her husband in western Washington.

Two Poems by Laura Ann Reed

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Something Useful

She finds me sprawled
face-down on a chaise lounge—
head in the shade, legs in
the sun. I peer between
white vinyl slats at
a tiny black ant.

You could be doing
something useful, she says, my
mother whose mouth holds
rivers that swim with
consonants and vowels—
so many ways of saying,
You’re not the daughter I wanted.

How to explain—
what’s sacred resides in
the sensation of warmth on
the backs of my legs, that and
the way the ant carries what looks
like a crumb in its jaws, although
I can tell it’s really a city of stillness.
Also, the fact that no one but
I witness it crossing the patio tiles,
bound for a place it belongs.

*

Thief

Early spring, I slip through
           a gap in the privet hedge.

The neighbor’s apple tree quivers
           with white frills of silk, unfurling

leaves that spin in wind. My mother
           won’t hold me in her gaze the way

I stand here gaping at this
           ancient tree. Won’t rock me

like I’m cradled in rain-
           soaked winter limbs, sheltered

in July—when the thinnest
           membrane lies between bark

and my sun-dark skin. In fall, that
           profusion of small, hard fruit. Tart,

with only a faint trace of sweetness.
           I eat and eat this proof of love.

*

Laura Ann Reed’s work has been anthologized in How To Love the World, and is forthcoming in the SMEOP anthology: HOT, as well as having appeared in Loch Raven, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Swimm, The Ekphrastic Review, and Willawaw, among other journals. Laura holds a dual undergraduate degree in French/Comp Lit from UC Berkeley, and completed Master’s Degree programs in the Performing Arts, Clinical Psychology, and Organizational Development prior to working as Leadership Development Trainer at the San Francisco headquarters of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, prior to the Trump Administration. She and her husband now reside in western Washington.

Only Now by Laura Ann Reed

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Only Now
           —after Jim Moore

But I’m not ready, my father says,
           to be taken off the playing field—

and first I bring him shells that hold
           the sea. Then river stones. Then I

bring his favorite recordings
           of Paul Robeson singing spirituals

and lullabies. These make him cry.
           And it’s only now, two decades

later, that I see my error: All he needed
           was for me to be with him. To step

closer to his bedside. To allow into my heart
           what flooded his—all that loneliness.

*

Laura Ann Reed holds a dual undergraduate degree in French/Comparative Literature from The University of California, Berkeley, and subsequently completed master’s degree programs in the Performing Arts and Clinical Psychology—prior to working as a leadership development trainer at the San Francisco headquarters of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. She and her husband currently reside in western Washington. Her work has been anthologized in How To Love the World, and is forthcoming in the SMEOP anthology: HOT, and in the anthology, The Wonder of Small Things. Her poems have appeared in Swimm and The Ekphrastic Review, among other journals.