en plein air
for many years I fucked en plein air : not to transgress : felt neither fear nor frisson at being caught : seen in the open
it was a stinging desire for the places: within Lake Trasimene as the washerwomen on the shore sent carbolic bubbles across the water : crisp
autumn leaves in a ditch in Yorkshire : on haycocks : archaic : in a field
under moon & owls in Kenilworth : on golden cowslips under apple trees
in Normandy
I don’t remember the men : I remember the owls : the smell & caress
of the hay : blossom : dome of sky over lake : flesh under water
it was the only way I knew to enter the privilege of being unhumaned
dishumaned : unhoused from my history : our history
mouse : owl
owl : mouse
to enter a state of being that was reckless : not according to human mores
reckless because doomed
because returning to the human world is what breaks the heart
to know the heart must re-enter mere language
a cock & moon story
round this full valley
the moon ticks
its route precisely
& its bright-as-day shadows
turn the night crazy
three o’clock
& the cockerels
are frantic with duty
while the owls
ruffle the silver grass
with their little killings
& in your gaze too
I am small & edible
so wide the wings
so thin the quilt
ruffle the silver grass
with their little killings
& in your gaze too
I am small & edible
so wide the wings
so thin the quilt
folie à deux
in each of the ruined spaces
of the abbey on the Seine
nave & votive chapel
cloister & choir
bee orchids now
entice solitary bees
with precise mirrors of desire
each space holds
a slightly different orchid
echoing a slightly different bee
napped in plump brown velvet
a touch of crimson
a flare of hips
so intricate a passion
for handy dandy
which is the flower?
which is the bee?
& how we love to turn
& turn our selves
to be the fumbled
object of desire
Anny Jones grew up in a Great Expectations landscape in Kent but has lived in NH & Normandy for years. She is a poetry graduate of the MFA program at Pacific University. She writes in several forms—poetry, novels, lyric essays—& gives quirky, though scholarly, talks on matters like hay in art, literature, technology & history. Laundry ditto etc. etc.