Two Poems by Anne Barngrover

My Poems Keep Ending in Stars

Which means I can’t stop thinking
about the dying

passage of time. Which means I experience
flashing sensations, as from a blow

to the head. Sudden white spot
on the forehead

of a horse. An ancient
and forgotten name. Uncreated

god. Which means I fall enraptured,
as with romantic love.

To set with small, bright bodies.
To buy an additional life

or lives. Which means I burn
high in the air with a colored flame.

Which means I crack
into radiating contours. I release

my units of power. Naked body
under a vast night sky. Crown-of-thorns

in the seas of hard coral. I pour out
only the water that is required.

Which means I am affixed
with my own distinctive purpose.

Which means I learned to gem
and sequin. Vulnerable

as a necklace. Subconscious
and granular. Which means I count

feathers and jasmine. Leather
and pink sand. Which means I test

my faith even as I kneel on dry land.
Which means that I begin.

So This is What It Means to Be Alone

I said  to the prayer  I rub  into my fingers  To the scalloped  and sun-blanched roofs  I said  to the dark
bowl  filled  with  apples  and  avocados To the  old  face  in a new  wall To the fleeting  and the common
To the scars  along  my jaw  To history  and pre-history  To multiple vowels  in a row  To any  transitional
phrases  I said  to  every  brightly-colored door  To  my  pinched nerve  and  my  anemia  To  the  opened
boxes of purple spice  and orange clove  To the fish market  with wet floors  and octopi  shaped as stars
To the sweat I wake up to  in the crook of my legs  To the smoked mussel pasta  and cheap yellow wine
To the hero’s journey  I never believed in……………………………To my solitude that has always been an
illusion  To the wind  preparing ruins……………………………………To the solar salt and sea brine I said
to the mural with a dog as a mouth………………………………………and a pillar as an ear To the kittens
small as cupcakes on dirty ancient…………………………………………tile To my child selves and future
selves though I can’t imagine going……………………………………….on I said to the machine beating in
my father’s heart and the Cycladic blue………………………………..of my mother’s eyes To my sister and
friends  and cousins  To the green bottled beer  at the secret  beach bar  To the  clothes  wires stretched
in alleys and the rush I get from leaning over  To the Museum of Broken Relationships  To luminescent
vibrations  To the trapped  gas  in  my  digestive  system  To the shaking  of  my  thighs  To the donkey
wearing a rug with silver bells  To the cooked and baked cheeses  To the one that tastes like apple pie
To the bougainvillea  unrelenting  To my confusion  when I misread  To the soft parts  of a dead animal
To the house it leaves behind I said  to the ocean that knows everything  but won’t tell me what it sees

Anne Barngrover‘s most recent poetry collection, Brazen Creature, was published with The University of Akron Press in 2018 and was a finalist for the 2019 Ohioana Award for Poetry. She is an assistant professor of English and Creative Writing at Saint Leo University, where she is on faculty in the low-residency MA program in Creative Writing, and lives in Tampa, Florida.