anna laura reeve

Wetlands between the Mountains

So many words about dead ends.

Once again, October.

Run through me like teeth

comb me out flat over a sky

The jeans, the jackets and the shirts

dropoffs pickups sport socks

I wake again in a dark valley of

clothes Soft hems

stretched collars stiff towels

I’m pulling a sleeve that I can’t get out

Knits suck at my ankles then calves

soon, knees They resist category—

shorts/skirts dresses/tunics linenblend

lyrcrasomething I keep them away

from my neck beat them down

and up they surge they touch my neck

with a finger

I was lonely, I was lovely

I think I might deserve this

Falling asleep again

If you could’ve seen me then

New Year’s Day, 2024

A pall of gray overhead smooths the day’s despair

into something soft.

An old man with cratered face shuffles downstreet,

wrapped in the brightest red tartan blanket I have ever seen.

It is brighter than the sun. It is insufficient,

like everything.

The way I know is the sick animal way: hide till you die.

When you are watched by hawks, it is a good way.

I want a new life.

I return to French New Wave, to slowcore, to the garden, to desire

with myself in my hands, asking for the symbol

that will make everything clear.

The woman I know—an acquaintance—whose house burned

around her last year

has slept near death each night,

wrapped her hands around its throat and said

Give me

Self Portrait as the Dreamer

A hush as of dulled hearing after assault

settles in the floodplain.

Bright grasses beneath clear water. Silt settled.

Water laps at the ears of the Dreamer, lying on her back.

Not a mark on her.

Lilacs sheared in the storm roll gently

jack-in-the-pulpit floats above her palm.

What does she dream down there beneath the water.

On her collarbones, a string of bleeding hearts.

The power

rolls over and away.

Stop—

to watch the stillness of the Dreamer—

How porous I became

after the force of him moved through me

how still and far from everyone I become

Calm water filters through me

the lilacs are my sisters

the yellow-rumped warbler my daughter

The woman was allowed to dream

The woman allowed herself to dream

The dream allowed the woman to awaken