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Molehill of loss—
Dark birch—
Ditch, or furrow,
petulant—
Dawn struck—
Surely, fixed—
*
Alas, alas! hardly above troubles.
Abate. Treat me. Adorn me,
lightly: salt, crimson,
a quarter of the sky
*
Draw a likeness
in chalk and ruddle,
slow fury of two colours.
*
Teach a person to prevent
an armed bully,
a humorous old fellow in the chimney-corner—
Tomorrow: none.
*
By herself, professional,
to the inner room,
on foot, she would—
*
Wonders within:
every grove and hillside
silver, smooth, skillful,
also, lovable.
*
To the outer room—rats,
and to the inside room—a household demon.
Reach, lady!
Rise up, go, ladies!
*
Glad to blow off
a death-bearing stone,
in this following style:
alive to myself.
Anna Lena Phillips Bell is the author of Ornament, winner of the Vassar Miller Poetry Prize; A Pocket Book of Forms, a guide to poetic forms; and the chapbook Smaller Songs, from St. Brigid Press. Her poems appear in 32 Poems, Five Points, the Southern Review, and Subtropics. The recipient of a North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship in literature, she has served since 2013 as the editor of Ecotone, the award-winning literary magazine of place. She is also an editor of Lookout Books and a contributing editor for American Scientist. She teaches in the creative writing department at UNC Wilmington, and calls ungendered Appalachian square dances in North Carolina and beyond.