WRITINGS | annlondon

Writing

Included on this page are a few recent works. Enjoy.

Prisoner of War

This war has changed you,
and I will no longer be the same.

You came home from Afghanistan
but you never returned to me.

Now, your words slice through me
like an improvised explosive device

exploding unexpectedly,
your rage sears sharp barbs of steel

— into my soul.
I don’t live like normal people do.

Now, I live in a firebase, always on alert
behind our gate, over the bridge

which crosses the creek, that surrounds our house.
At first, you wanted to keep the gate locked

until you misplaced the key and I said:
“If I find the gate locked again, I won’t come back.”

We moved here for peace —

But the terrorists and warlords and demons
and children, limbs torn from landmines

and men, shot, bleeding to death in your arms
and rockets whistling, thudding just outside your perimeter

and friends who died, blown to unrecognizable bits
and the stench of raw, bloody flesh, severed hands and feet

from the makeshift hospital
erected high in the remote mountains

followed you home into our bedroom
where you sleep inside your sleeping bag

distant in your cocoon
and next to you, my breasts untouched—
—I weep.

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The Street Corner

Sometimes, when it rains, grey, the air heavy with longing,
I see it —faint —blurring in and out of focus, always out of reach.
It’s the street corner, the place I once loved.
I got on the wrong train that day and I never came back.
Now, in a crowded grocery store, or while crossing the street,
or when taking a certain turn down a road
I hear the whispers—broken fragments of conversations;
the calls and chatters of seagulls strutting in the park;
the train that whistles on schedule each day, far, far off,
then louder, louder as it scrapes across steel, slips in, then out of town.

Sometimes, when the sun brushes a subtle color onto a windowpane,
or when branches tango gently in the spring breeze,
or little girls skip to school— the melody cries
and I see the bricks on an old Victorian, the floating bridge
gliding across the lake, the narrow streets criss-crossing
between centuries-old buildings,
the lush green firs rising up everywhere— and the blurred faces

and the lives that go on without me

and a pain happens and an elephant stomps on my heart.
How. How. How—
How do I get back? To there? To the place I once loved?

How do I come back from murder?
from the slow death that kills every fiber, every idea,
every love, slowly, as if wringing the last bit of moisture
from a cloth, twisting, squeezing, strangling? To death.

This is all I have now: the smell of the air, swollen with moisture,
drifting up from the sea that leaves a salty taste in my mouth.
An ironic gift, imperceptible

until you’ve gone.

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Her Name Was

The year I was thirty I lived on the nineteenth floor.
From my deck and floor-to-ceiling windows

I savored an expansive, always-changing view of Elliot Bay.
On a bright day in May, the watercolor scene of seagulls

and sailboats encouraged me to take the apartment on the spot.
I got paid to write, studied method acting at a studio in an old church.

I memorized scripts in minutes, loved improvisation
walked to the market for breakfast, and fell in love.

What happened didn’t happen all at once.
Maybe if it had, I could have saved myself.

Instead, the fragments of my life slipped away
gradually, like bits of sand eroding from a rock.

It happened as I drove over the Aurora Bridge,
or when I went to the post office,

or when I stopped off at the grocery store,
or when I cancelled class to be with him.

I didn’t realize, then, that what seemed like tiny concessions
were the sum of my life.

I was no different from any other girl, really,
just a tender, tiny frog swimming happily in the water

not knowing the pot had been turned on,
until one day, I had been boiled.

I know you’re asking, Why? Why didn’t you just leave?
You might think I would have, the first time he raged,

or maybe when I began to stop — acting, writing, wearing hats
and fun clothes, having coffee with friends, singing

while doing the dishes, or wearing perfume.
These things I stopped doing, I stopped doing,

one by one, over time, not all at once.
It happened the way you might remove a flower

here or there, from a bouquet.
It’s hard to explain, really.

It’s hard to describe the hatred he had for these things,
how he criticized me incessantly

told me I looked stupid in hats
told me that my friends were dykes
that my voice was terrible
that my perfume smelled like rotting cabbage.

And in those seemingly, inconsequential concessions
I made to keep the rage at bay, I stopped being.

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Fire Ephemeral

I am the Banksia seed from the wild and stunning hills

high above the oceans in South Africa

a fire ephemeral— I am awakened from slumber by intense pain
to color the fields burnt orange, lipstick, white and green

to fill the air with fragrance to attract the bees
who come to feed on my nectar, then leave to pollinate

the shrubs, plants and grasses, regenerating
life and beauty in an ever-lasting circle.

I have discovered amazing ways to adapt and to survive.
Like the Fireweed, I am liberated by a deep burn.

Sometimes after a fire, I drop my seeds into the rich ash
sprout from roots hidden deep in the earth

Like the Fire Lilly, my seed can lie dormant for a decade
or more then bloom within days of a fire

I am the plant, which protects its vital organs, the Larch
which grows a thick shield of bark, the Ponderosa

that sheds its lower branches to keep the flames away.
Then, I rise up out of the devastation to rebel.

I am an orchid, sensuous, fragile, and exquisite
despite the fire that destroys everything.

Invigorated by the chemistry of combustion, I am beauty
born of complete ugliness, yet not indestructible.

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