Anna Newman
de aieris probacione
Some things are of Nature from the source: torn
from the pit at the base of the heart where my clock’s
wound tight as flock of birds. It is summer, the magnolias
are blossoming obscenely; it is night, the night is obscene
in its darkness. Survival is anxiety’s favorite brother. I put out
my hand & watch the fingers disappear in night’s mouth.
Soon I will lose three organs, each cell replaced
by blank vast nothing till I echo inside myself like a bell tolling.
Like how Thoreau talks about Nature puts no question &
answers none. I am made holy inside of Western quietness,
blessed by it. Have you ever been swallowed by a silence
so complete you can’t hear your own heart pounding, the ions
quiet in their channels? A quiet that sweeps your thoughts out
like a Swiffer as your body holds you tightly as a bandage
holds a wound. It is summer, there is a slick of sweat
between my thighs. The moisture leaves my body:
a ghost in the West night. I am made Blank
inside of Western quietness, find myself asunder. Purity comes
from a substance shucking off opposing qualities
by sheer force of will. Summer’s yearly tension
comes again & again, without question or answer:
I draw an outline of my body & put nothing inside.
I am that empty. The magnolia smells like the feet
of Judas. I am that blank: its petals softer than any organ.
Anna Newman holds an M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Maryland. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets, Poetry Northwest, Hayden’s Ferry Review, RHINO, and elsewhere. They are the recipient of the Nature and Place Prize from Frontier Poetry, judged by Amaud Johnson, and the Susan Neville Prize in Poetry from BOOTH, judged by Paige Lewis. They live in Salt Lake City, Utah, where they are a poetry reader for Quarterly West.