My Mother Explains the World
At four I dreaded
my nightgown patterned with rosebuds.
Everything had a spirit and spoke
translation fell to you.
God lay in wait with a crowbar
created a fanged world, starved it
told it to feed on weaklings.
Fear dropped its ink at the table
star spreading in my glass of milk
you let me use the goblet I loved
but its ruby rim admitted terror.
When you locked me in my room––
Stay there till the cows come home––
I screamed, listening to eternity
rise out of wild brambles
push its wheelbarrow through our yard
unlock the bulkhead door into the cellar.
Anne-Adele Wight
Copyright 2010
Birthday Coming
Decisions wise and foolish
made over chili peppers
blaze my trail through decades.
Time bristles behind me, comet’s tail,
spined fruit piles high in a crater.
I'm younger than rabbit ears
older than space channels.
Birthday rolls in garish
winking mint in tinfoil––
do I carry the wisdom of ages?
I want to sit on a cake
in jeans I've worn only twice
before candles rocket from their box
croaking like pastel ravens.
Anne-Adele Wight
Copyright 2009
Anne-Adele Wight is Vice President of the long-running series Poets and Prophets. She has written three chapbooks and her work has appeared in American Writing, Philadelphia Poets, Mad Poets Review, and other publications. A self-employed editor, she loves other people’s poetry, hiking, and rampant houseplants. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and two cats. "Birthday Coming" appeared in http://thedariens@blogspot.com.
