What stays is water fog which by now feels like erasure and what is tiny anyway certain angles of bent wrist someone’s annual breakdown in the kitchen the storming out of the house and the terror of long silences inside of which I arrange myself an empty outline a cinnamon light cast by lamps in skeletal circles I fluctuate too largely as a child I dreamed of a man robed emerging from a pool’s green mist I would call out for a caregiver when I could not remember my own name in the wet forest sometimes an umbrella would burst into flame
Ansley is a writer and teacher from the Pacific Northwest. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Colorado Boulder and is the author of the chapbook Geography (dancing girl press, 2015). Her work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Colorado Review, swamp pink, Bennington Review, and elsewhere. She currently works as the Director of the Writing Center at The Evergreen State College and teaches poetry and mixed media workshops at local community arts organizations, including Hugo House in Seattle. She lives in Olympia, Washington with her dog. You can visit her website at https://www.ansleyclark.com/
Visit Ansley's page at MoonPathPress.com
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Because the words turn to broken glass on my tongue and make of my voice a rusty hinge, I write them here. Dread darkness grows behind beloved blue eyes, under her temple bones, beneath a forehead I still kiss, where my nostrils seek warmth and remembered solace. I know, I know, I know everything loved is to be lost and scattered; and yet the daily lesson drums in the blood beneath my skin, repeats knots of sorrow down my bowel. My beloved disappears, day upon night, untethered in time, leaving language behind. And yes, because her words are being lost, I write these, here.
Thomas A. Thomas, born in Illinois to a medical doctor mother and a ballet dancer father, spent a lot of time off by himself in the woods, prairies, and fields, day and night, in all seasons. Thomas found his way to the University of Michigan, where he studied with Donald Hall, and Gregory Orr, and workshopped some poems with Robert Bly. After a couple of years of madness in New York City, he found his way to the Pacific Northwest, where he has made his home for over 40 years. He is now delighted to be a Board Member for the Olympia Poetry Network, and to be active in numerous online poetry and photography groups. This collection of poems regards his experience of caring for his wife for over a decade, up to the present time, as she gradually succumbs to extreme early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Visit Thomas online at https://linktr.ee/thomasathomas
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