Canoeing                                                                                         

 

 

The fragile bones

of a fish

are etched in black rock—

shale stacked

like a deck of playing cards.

 

A white goat

leaps outcrop to boulder

and the ridge protrudes

knobbed like the backbone

of a terrible lizard.

 

From our yellow canoe

we gaze up and up and up—

cannot imagine

those keen-bladed peaks

as sea bottom

 

or the whirl of stars

we see at night—

so many dead

but still we see

their light.

 

 

 

Perseid Showers                                                                              

 

Lightpoints through

an upturned sieve

 

cold white starlight

illuminates nothing

 

star-dusted pansies

petals edged in ghost light

 

blazing meteorites

enflame the sky

 

alien alphabets inscribe

thin air

 

time’s margin

burns to cinder

Ann Howells’s poetry has appeared in Calyx, Crannog (Ire), Little Patuxent Review, Magma (UK), Sentence and Spillwayas well as other small press and university journals. She serves on the board of Dallas Poets Community, 501-c-3 non-profit; she has edited Illya’s Honey, since 1999, recently taking it from print to digital (www.IllyasHoney.com). Her chapbook, Black Crow in Flight, was published by Main Street Rag Publishing (2007). Another chapbook, the Rosebud Diaries, was published by Willet Press (2012). Her work has been read on NPR; she has been interviewed on Writers AroundAnnapolis television show; and she has been twice nominated for both a Pushcart and a Best of the Net.