Anna Meister
Two POEMS
Poem for Inclusion
AFTER ANNE CECELIA HOLMES
Ode to the lace edge of anything.
Ode to the ice as it melts, to my fingers
losing feeling. To all the bodies I’ll never touch
again. Ode to midnight applause, to peeling back
to intuition. Ode to leather, to faces found
in woodgrain, ode to the morning’s swallow.
Ode to the middle, to coming
back and staying there. Ode to my hand
on the window, to tracing the shape
of my hand. Ode to forgiving.
Ode to the radiator’s hiss and buckle.
Ode to you holding me. Ode to my pit hair,
my particular funk. Ode to daisies and thistles
and the loves for which they stand. Ode to my spine,
how it dips. How that night is always with me.
Ode to an extra ten minutes, to this
extra ten pounds. Ode to selves
former and future. Ode to learning
lipstick. Ode to the nipples larger than life,
to the breasts catching up. To lyrics
never forgotten. Ode to attics and anxiety.
To how a lemon can kill
my rotten mood. Ode to invisibility. To the voice
lost like a sock or key. Ode to the symmetry
of my bald head. Ode to fresh sheets on the bed.
Ode to roasted roots, hours invoiced,
to letters missed and mailed. Ode to milk,
sweetened. Condensed. Ode to the ward and currents
and saving myself. Ode to failure
when the effort is to end. Ode to the shiver the poem
works through the body, how it means
thanks. Ode to rhubarb and tremor,
dropping unnecessary articles. Ode to stitching
what to remember out of colored thread.
Ode to what didn’t stick with me.
Interruption With Egg Yolk
Everything that happens earns a plus or minus
as we tiptoe toward the edge of end times. I swear
I wouldn’t mind it. All tucked in, waiting for the ticking
to stop, weight to topple over. When walking home
wine-swept I let the wind have my face. I’m tempted
to scratch it right off. Special secret, my woman-
hood rising. When the body wants what’s warm,
we dance it into us. Bag of ice pressed to my heat,
a clove of garlic hidden where? Chicago’s too spread
and ambling to feel city. Pretty squares, good mustard,
I break a brunch yolk open and watch it inch toward spuds.
It’s then I’m notified you’ve been picturing my face,
your likes a passive reminder of what I thought I’d written
out of me already. With a click I’m east again, mute
and bruising quickly. No doubt you weren’t thinking,
just let it happen, but I was only shell. Couldn’t
consent or push you off me. Each second of invasion
pushed the body deeper into dirt where things don’t even grow.
You wrapped me up after, kissed my forehead (that’s
what I can’t shake), returned me purple as a house.
Whenever I’m stuck, leaves wave through the window.
I can do nothing but rate the moment what it’s owed.
Anna Meister is author of the chapbook Nothing Granted (dancing girl press, 2016) & holds an MFA in poetry from NYU. Her poems have recently appeared in Kenyon Review, Tinderbox, Big Lucks, and elsewhere. Anna’s debut manuscript is currently a finalist for the 2017 National Poetry Series. She lives in Des Moines, IA.