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.