Anna Marie LaForest, two poems

SUCCESS

Hair modeled

like a dipped cone

pace clipped

speech honed

in finely chiseled

tongue

hands flash

smartly sleeved

underscoring

well-buttoned points

only your eyes

sucked back and strung

with strain

betray you

like dishrags

in a kitchen drain

sticky

brittle

wrung.

THE ARCHAEOLOGIST, THE BURGLAR, AND YOU

All risk discovery. I am the ancient bowl ever so carefully nudged from dust with soft tools and a brush trapped so long under the earth air itself could crumble me. I am the bisque-fired fancy dish the thief hides in his sack little does he expect my silent alarm his gloved hands fumble and I am about to drop and crack. I am the one you chose to kiss split-second, soft, sympathetic no slobbering dog or sticky kid Judas or anyone peccable ever rose to this – Take care in your discovery fate has me uncommon primed the knowing rush of your lips rings bells and I disintegrate as if by design.

Anna Marie's essays, poems, stories, and theater reviews have been published in The Sulphur River Review; Washington Opera Magazine; Intermission Magazine; The Broadkill Review; Vine Leaves Literary Journal; and even on a cereal box created by LaPalabra Café Press in Portland, Oregon. She won an award for her poetry in the Grand Rapids, Michigan, Healing Cancer Series in the early 1990’s.

A Michigan native, she received her M.A. in English from the University of Wyoming, prior to which she studied with Joseph Brodsky in Ann Arbor, MI, and John Gardner at the University of Detroit. She spent several years as an Instructor of business briefing and analytical writing before returning to a focus on creative work.

Anna Marie feels her writing style has been influenced by Chekhov, Isak Dinesen, Anais Nin, E.T.A. Hoffmann, as well as by fairy tales and opera.