The Aneurism of O. Patricia Holden

the-new-library:

by Annie Werner

a parliament light
sleeps between         
index and middle 
as she wavers in
and out
of slow merle haggard
on the radio.
her half-time rhythm
wicker chair
rocking,
a deep ship
within her
harbored

(once 16
she ran away
to OK with a
military man,
hitched before
he could say
hiroshima)

round carpet-singes
constellate her dusty
drug store slippers;
a potential
fire squandered.