2 Poems
Anna Jordan
Terra Polaris
On Wednesday she will pull me out into the cornfields
where the leaves will sway above my head and above her shoulders
I will hold her hand.
Both our palms will get sticky.
There will be crickets in the trees and the corn will creak from side
to side and it will be only a forest until it is a lake she can part with her fingers
She will want to sit down and she will want to watch the moon
remember to stop hiding so we will draw out the tide
and we will lie back with our roots in the dirt
until she will forget how to breathe
and I will breathe for her
and I will forget how to breathe too.
Cento for What’s in Between
On a given morning, as the wind drops
under the trees in full excess,
a shiver now runs through the laurel hedge.
Across the wide, empty fields,
leaves newly turned
brew in the quiet deeps at the far end.
They have settled in the empty branches
like an in-drawn breath,
the air alive with something inconceivable.
It trembles in the breeze, holding.
1 Donald Revell. “When I Die.” Poetry Magazine, February 2019.
2 William Carlos Williams. “Sonnet in Search of an Author.” Pictures from Brueghel, New Directions Publishing, 1962.
3 Ciaran Carson. “The New Estate.” Collected Works, Wake Forest University Press, 2009.
4 William Trowbridge. “Stark Weather.” Put This On, Please, Red Hen Press, 2014
5 Marilyn Dorf. “When the Red Goose Wakes.” Platte Valley Review, vol. 33, no. 1, 2012.
6 Marsha De La O. “Under the Lemon Tree.” Antidote For Night, BOA Editions Ltd., 2015.
7 Joanna Klink. “Variations on a Trance.” Excerpts from a Secret Prophecy, Penguin Books, 2015.
8 John Brehm. “Landscape Survey.” Poetry Magazine, August 1999.
9 Bradford Tice. “Milkweed.” Rare Earth, New Rivers Press, 2013.
10 Thomas Centolella. “Lines of Force.” Terra Firma, Copper Canyon Press, 1990.
Anna Jordan is an undergraduate student at the University of Ottawa. She writes poetry and stories for children of all ages, and enjoys looking at trees. Her work can be found in Common House Magazine.