Poetry by Anna Leonard

     Danielle Henry CC




Wings

A thin, translucent paper sheet separates 
my mother from metal and plastic, that cold 
blue-grey bed, color of a cerulean warbler. It becomes
a nest, built from bits of trees, other mothers. All the life
it held. They don’t tell us about the body,
how it dies, slowly, unsatisfyingly: the trailing off 
of words, everything a comma. 

This is not to say the sentence doesn’t end.

They don’t tell us it’s disgusting: blood, vomit,
the skin piss-yellow. Maybe it eases the ending,
like silence breeds silence. We hold her rancid breath 
for seven days. I sing to her. She tells me to stop.
I try birdsongs next: nightingale, blackbird, green
finch. Open the window, Anna. Painted shut,
the sky, gray as ever out there.

This is not to say the light won’t get in.

I keep a few strands of her hair
in a plastic baggie by my pillow. I monitor
my lover’s stomach while he sleeps, obsessing 
over the rise and fall of life. It does rise;
it does fall. They don’t tell us about relief, only 
guilt and jaws clenched. They don’t tell us 
how to become flight. But, we do. We do. 

This is to say I will.

Just as we are made full in bellies, warm,
we will become ourselves again, after this sentence
ends, the next will begin, and it will run
and run and run, until we are tired, until the egg
grows feathers, becomes lungs, outlives death.
That is my joy. This is my flight.
My mother; my wings.





Consolidation

Crawling outside myself, contracting 
my tymbal, singing that cicada chirp, 
I sprawled out, fell 
                                      through a crack 
between cobble            stones, down
to the basement where you still lived, 
spray painting the beaten door. 
Was I sister or mother to you? Child?

Protection wears many faces. Dreams
reinforce memory. My therapist says 
anger is necessary. You would not 
have done that to a child. Remember.

But, I have only two hands. Each morning,
I set anger down to pick up grief,
heavy and palatable. Longing for 
what is lost, people get that, but to stop 
dreaming, stop falling through dampness 
and instead emerge with new skin and 
a new, happy, forgetful life… No,
there are many secrets to be kept
because the child in me wants to love you.

But, I only have two hands. They used to dig
furiously under that basement in my mind,
hoping that you did nothing wrong,
that it was a song by someone else.
I used to wonder if the search itself
could save me, who I’d been writing towards,
where it had all gone. But back then, 
all I knew was to defend you
when I just needed to forgive you.





400-Meter Dash

running so fast I think she’s gonna chip the asphalt
my sister is this close
to God in summer’s belly

Kick it, Audy!

sweating in sync, mom running alongside the track
she used to be a sprinter
family of runners, that’s the poem
she’s shouting,

Kick it, Audy!

i learned it, too, ten years old
anything mom held in her mouth
i wanted to taste

Kick it, Audy!

something bright and surprising, like 
biting into an orange slice
our screaming white, stringy, stuck in our teeth
nothing worse than being 16 and too loved

KICK IT, AUDY!

i used to devour sleep, wet and thick
trying to regurgitate the morning we all piled into bed 
after Jimmy died
the three of us untied and re-tied at our palms
then just the two, a hand each with mom 
on the other side

i wish i could marry grief
would make an awful lover, but i could claim daddy issues

Try not to make jokes tonight, Anna.

mom said that after Aud threw a plastic pumpkin 
at my head on thanksgiving
it was funny then but it’s less funny here
where i know her better

a mother herself now, but wasn’t she always?
her girl named after mom and Jimmy, after death
but in protest because my sister, she’s a runner
before she carried Isla, she knew my weight
bulletproof baby carrier on her tummy
keeping secrets was her superpower
what a sad thing to say of a child

i still see that girl, those quick, thin legs of hers
just behind the eyes, she is small
frightened, still keeled over before the race
i put a hand on her back, her ribs like plexiglass
bending with her heavy breaths
my fingers say, Thank you, and I’m sorry

before there was me, an open door
mother and daughter, both kids
how could they have known better?
how could i have saved them?

her polyester uniform of blue and yellow
that deep, dense gold
it remembers my palms 
and i hope it sees me
hears me

KICK IT, AUDY!!!!!




Anna Leonard is a poet and musician currently based in Richmond, VA. Her poems can be found in Emerge Literary Journal, Eunoia Review, The Rising Phoenix Review, and Ghost City Press. Her music can be found on all streaming platforms, but she shares music and poetry more casually on Instagram: @annale0nard