sarahannecox

[sarahannecox]

4/30

I’m so glad they stopped the construction clang

no wait- they didn’t it’s just lighter

in an analysis of Hecuba (the end of the play

when she kills Polyphemus’ sons)

they called her unhinged. 

The clang in my head about women

even in analysis

the clang in my head about retribution by women

and when Agamemnon said she couldn’t possibly 

get satisfaction because she was weak, 

a girl.  Well it’s no wonder she blinded Polyphemus with dress pins

[sarahannecox]

4/25/2020

Poem for Polio

My mother had polio in 1950

All the kids were getting it

Candyland was invented 

For hospital children

The boy on the board

With the blue blazer has a brace

My mother had a limp

All her life  and turned her

Head sideways to swallow

Today the kids play Animal Crossing

And the swimming pools are closed 

Half the dead in Europe lived 

In old age homes different  targets

For different diseases

From iron lungs to ventilators

[sarahannecox]

4/19/2020

Born on Easter

at 4am my water broke and 

I was marinating a lamb because

I had decided a baby was never coming

a day later my sister brought me a deep red egg

from the Annunciation Cathedral

Annunuciate 

your arrival

with the sound of your name 

a proclamation

with the push of the outstretched hand

the spark that develops in elements, in water or fire

Easter again and I drip wax your name 

onto an egg so that I might pass it to 

you through a door or window.

[sarahannecox]

4/17/2020

Rev up the television it’s 

time to work out 

wear down the carpet in 

a two by two square it’s good 

Friday and I don’t fast but make 

a pascha and  a kolachky

Everything must be balanced 

the hot wax on the egg

the posed hand I copied

my aunt’s Russian egg designs from

the internet a digital photo of her eggs from last year

because I’ve forgotten some of the old patterns

and I’m the only one to remember now

[sarahannecox]

4/15/2020

The moments outside shine, burn the eyes

crystalline in their complexity

except

there is tape on the ground

or chalk of where to stand

how to navigate the aisle,

the road and I miss

the promise of future times

where I would lie back in the sun 

close my eyes.

[sarahannecox]

4/13/2020

Sisyphus and the Churt 

Black crows and ravens

learned from the hawks 

black crows and ravens at

twin peaks today carrying

blocks of churt the stone breaks that way

in a struggle with another raven it dropped

banging against the road

I checked because I thought it would be a dead thing

maybe a mouse or vole or something a hawk would kill

but just a rock, more ravens clutching churt blocks

and three with white paper shreds

pushing into the wind off the cliff

[sarahannecox]

4/12/2020

high fog on twin peaks so you can see the 

view Oakland, Diablo, freeways emptied of traffic

dogs are leisure I looked

for the mission blue butterfly and thought

I saw one, only because the photo is rarely identical to the real thing

so maybe more white than blue

and surprisingly yellow in person, fluttering

[sarahannecox]

4/9/2020

Corona Virus Ghazal

bakers pin ziplock bags of sourdough starter

to electricity poles and that is hope

from home everything every thing in the larder

fourteen ancient cups upside down

little boxes of you and you black boxes

dream landscapes and avatars of our better selves

my starter’s lineage-  the son of john snow

her name is anarchy, from the book of order

high priestess card on the lazy susan, electric candle nadir 

the rose heads, the votives, she learned to squeeze out the flame

these days the sun that hits Valencia Street seems weak, window shopping plywood 

hiding behind electricity poles, and that is order

[sarahannecox]

4/8/2020

Coronavirus haiku-

Do not crown me cuz

I don’t want to be your queen

Laze in grass and sprigs

[sarahannecox]

4/4/2020

 Mission Dolores 

a closed sign taped to the oak and iron doors

the bucket outside 

says “unblessed palms”

I took one even 

though I’m not Catholic

and Easter comes later for the eastern church

I run by the new Greek cathedral too

they may be finally 

finished with the insides

covered the steel beams of the dome

with a Mary

and sweet jasmine from someone’s

back yard to crown her springtime head

we can’t know

still, we’ll color the eggs in wax relief

[sarahannecox]

4/2/2020

4/2/2020

When speaking with black boxes 

Sift through the exchange to find the value

We are all dark clouds

She fell while roller skating

Broke her wrist

And I could have told you that

The hands and asphalt and weak bone

I’ve practically seen it

Nobody is playing outside

Nobody is allowed

The suspicious nature of receiving attention during a crisis

We’ve made changes in the dinner dress code

Please allow yourself the time to grieve

For all the tiny losses

I have none

Only big ones 

Big dead losses 

When calling out black boxes

Sift through the loss of self

We are all samovars

[sarahannecox]

4/1/2020

She arrived in splashes of hot pink and and azure blue

all along the ramparts

flanked with a dizzying array stars and simple contrasting patterns

easy to look at

easy to follow a line as it winds through years and hairs of blond 

and green and deeper blue and violet the veins connect

  seventeen and it’s true there is something

dark outside

  hair woven tight above a balance beam

enormous sweatshirt

the leaves of a book

erasing and rewriting

strumming the song

that bounces from the walls

reverberation of childhoods

mermaid dolls and high C’s

relentless G chords

  seventeen and he was right about

darkness over head

  We watch the landscape sink lower out of sight

the block becomes the car

becomes the inside

we jog in place

last night we pretended we had doors

diningroom, livingroom, breakfastnook

and the screen door lanai

[sarahannecox]

April Poem A Day

Starts tomorrow. Who’s in?

[sarahannecox]

April 23

Fundamental

nation

too late

transcribe

pink string

overflow

[sarahannecox]

April 22

the differences shine through whether the age or figure

acrylic and oil, ordered lines or stubby objects 

opposites in the living room

our own laboratory 

laugh together  

[sarahannecox]

April 19

seventeen years

the voice of the living room

your calling and not calling at the same time

old and young, pulling away and calling me back

the years I will miss

the strumming guitars of children

[sarahannecox]

April 18

the important bit

about the spoons

castoff, regularized

the hope of corn

the existence of both C and K