Poetry by Annie Virginia

     Martin Cathrae CC




Harvest Moon and the Boys Are Waning and the Boys Are Wanting

never 
been a full moon
here where nobody leaves 
history more loyal than blood
n milk

gone thin
to the bellies 
of their babies     nothin
can compare to shotguns Daddy says     
oh but

bodies 
young      a dull thump
of dust in the hayloft trying
at stars

these boys
hear larch needles 
whisper a cough syrup 
voice the sound of fire       their mamaw’s
needles

stitching 
rebel folklore 
between teeth chaw in holes 
in their gums        these boys all gaunt and full 
of tar

their mouths
stalactite caves
broken where their sweethearts 
live       bearing til they lose to a better
shaking 

cycle
certain as a 
jack-in-the-box      what comes
out will always be gruesome gruesome
but still

comes out
fear gets creaky
after all these winters
strung scarecrow between the shoulders
can tell

snow’s near
but no mercy
of muscle        so mamas
breed lambskin babies with tar eyes
heirloom

cheeks gone
pulp       holy cross 
how the baby girls lie
for the switchback boys nails in wood
fruitmeat

and stones
and witchwhisper
hair and mama tells them 
nothing sacred in the cornstalks
nothing

​



twist back
                 for MNC (November 12, 1991-May 28, 2016)

milkghost and sunflower 
i think of you
all summer
i heard most everything a soft wrong with all that rosemary in my ears 
our bones a small story about life that doesn’t end 
the light coming off teeth at dusk
in the only hour the bulbs lining my apartment walkways could be 
called lanterns would you look at that
loons breaking 
a drop of honey fallen on a smear of chalk 
the saw-blade jiggling between our knees in the truck 
outside that house where you sheltered me
your wooden bird on my bedside table 
i wrote a letter to your mother i never sent 
it is selfish 
to die with so many people inside you 
back then if you were the moon with milk-clean veins
i was learning a language 
if you were needled overfull even careless
i am still asking 
and every June 
there is violet in my breath 
because women of the water always meet again
like a river swearing return
we swim in tidewater
we coat our burns in cold milk 
we are never far from coming again 
to lamplight in heat

​
​


Annie Virginia (she/her) is a Southern lesbian and an MFA runaway teaching high school English in New York City. She has fibromyalgia and a metal ankle. She was a 2023 Seventh Wave Bainbridge Resident. You may find her work at Pangyrus, Rough Cuts, Brooklyn Poets, The Seventh Wave, in 'Best New Poets 2019', and in Blue Earth Review.