{"id":763,"date":"2010-04-12T18:48:25","date_gmt":"2010-04-12T23:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/?p=763"},"modified":"2010-04-12T18:48:25","modified_gmt":"2010-04-12T23:48:25","slug":"anne-barngrover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/2010\/04\/anne-barngrover\/","title":{"rendered":"Anne Barngrover"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coming Back to the Home I Made for the Woman I am Now<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here, I know the white dogwood<\/p>\n

the redbud<\/p>\n

the sleet-bright fences<\/p>\n

fields tasseled in living gold.<\/p>\n

I have driven down these fields<\/p>\n

ones that look the same until you notice<\/p>\n

they are not, the matted fur and bone crunch<\/p>\n

of possum and deer, picked to their meat<\/p>\n

by turkey buzzards, our school\u2019s mascot.<\/p>\n

See their flocks blackening the sky.<\/p>\n

See them circle the hills beyond hills<\/p>\n

a blood-dark spiral.<\/p>\n

Everything here reminds me<\/p>\n

of the way I wept into my palms<\/p>\n

with a coat on my lap, the thigh-<\/p>\n

clench chill of wrought-iron stairs<\/p>\n

where I gave way\u00a0 after running through snow<\/p>\n

purse-swinging<\/p>\n

knife-breathing<\/p>\n

from the town bar.\u00a0 I became all over again<\/p>\n

a crumpled girl-thing in a world<\/p>\n

of hairy wrists and loud-mouthed desires.<\/p>\n

I let you count the hungry whites of my ribs<\/p>\n

feel the aching push of my lungs<\/p>\n

gather to a wailing bouquet<\/p>\n

all the veins of my skinless body.<\/p>\n

These days, you are the cobwebs<\/p>\n

that crowd my path<\/p>\n

the hound-dog ghost that drags<\/p>\n

along my ankles in the mud.<\/p>\n

One day I will kick you to the highway<\/p>\n

and I will laugh<\/p>\n

when you are struck, burst<\/p>\n

and splattered<\/p>\n

among the animal shit and scrabble weed<\/p>\n

dirt for buzzards and criminals to clean.<\/p>\n

Thrust of the road, I will run you down<\/p>\n

over and over and over again<\/p>\n

till you won\u2019t look like you<\/p>\n

till you won\u2019t look like anything<\/p>\n

but something that has been hated for so long.<\/p>\n

And perhaps the day will come<\/p>\n

when I have grown old and summoned<\/p>\n

the curling softness hidden somewhere<\/p>\n

inside of me, and perhaps then I will come back here<\/p>\n

kneel beside you, and O\u2014<\/p>\n

I will gather the strength to touch you finally<\/p>\n

till my fingers stain<\/p>\n

forgive your clotted pieces rotting<\/p>\n

into cigarette butts and dead tires in the mud.<\/p>\n

But for now<\/p>\n

this is the place where I will return.<\/p>\n

I take my coffee, touch the fences and trees<\/p>\n

lift my eyes to a sky spinning with turkey buzzards<\/p>\n

dark and bald and beautiful.<\/p>\n

They watch over me<\/p>\n

as I drive down these old fields once more.<\/p>\n

Today, they are bright<\/p>\n

with the yellowing estrogen<\/p>\n

of summer.<\/p>\n

The Living<\/strong><\/p>\n

These days I go places just to say<\/p>\n

I have gone. The train takes me from Prague<\/p>\n

to Kutna Hora to a church made of human bones.<\/p>\n

I press my forehead against the window and breathe<\/p>\n

out a small fog.\u00a0 A girl pokes her tongue at me.<\/p>\n

Her face is an imp\u2019s. Her eyes are the color of a scab.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s the legend of a half-blind monk<\/p>\n

gone mad who summoned the dead<\/p>\n

from a dump of earth, unmarked by plague.<\/p>\n

How he stacked their parts\u00a0into a geometry.<\/p>\n

How he created a chandelier out of every bone<\/p>\n

in the human body save for the smallest ones<\/p>\n

found deep within the inner ear.<\/p>\n

This I had expected: ribs and femurs,<\/p>\n

shoulders and knees, chalk-dry and decorated<\/p>\n

into crosses, roof draping and family crests;<\/p>\n

finger bones spelling scripture; skulls heaped<\/p>\n

into corners behind metal bar.\u00a0 Again, I find myself alone.<\/p>\n

I dreamt last night I awoke with an infection<\/p>\n

that left me sterile.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019ll just have to deal with it,\u201d<\/p>\n

my dream-mother told me then, huffing a sigh.<\/p>\n

She, who in real life plotted her reproduction<\/p>\n

like a spreadsheet, when she would meet my father,<\/p>\n

have me.\u00a0 And in my dream I couldn\u2019t stop screaming,<\/p>\n

curling tighter, kicking things away.\u00a0 A worry<\/p>\n

has burrowed deep within me like a bloodspot.\u00a0 I wish<\/p>\n

I could reach out to a bone nailed to the wall, wish I could<\/p>\n

cradle a skull in my palm. I miss that sober touch like an ache<\/p>\n

at the back of my jaw. And yet, I see myself one day<\/p>\n

in a place far from here. There I myself will baptize<\/p>\n

a dark-haired baby the first day\u00a0she is alive.<\/p>\n

I will marvel at the artwork of her body. I will<\/p>\n

blow my breath into the tiniest bones, the ones he left out<\/p>\n

of the chandelier, bones of her inner ear,<\/p>\n

the ones hidden even from God.<\/p>\n

Meteor Shower<\/strong><\/p>\n

For a moment we believe:<\/p>\n

Rush to the back deck,<\/p>\n

Grip wood curling like soap,<\/p>\n

And squint into the sky wedged<\/p>\n

Between the sagging fronds<\/p>\n

Of a browning banana tree.<\/p>\n

I wear slippers knit by the girl<\/p>\n

Before me, and your pajama pants<\/p>\n

Slung loose at my hipbones.<\/p>\n

The night is a sponge bath.<\/p>\n

A pumpkin softens at our feet.<\/p>\n

We hope to see meteors falling<\/p>\n

The way I\u2019ve hoped for snow,<\/p>\n

Spring, autumn, even in places<\/p>\n

That can\u2019t hold these promises.<\/p>\n

We peel back the night\u2019s skin,<\/p>\n

Strip clouds like fat from meat,<\/p>\n

Seeking brightness, seeking it bald.<\/p>\n

The oaks are green the color of velvet;<\/p>\n

Spanish moss shimmers on branches<\/p>\n

and wires, on us if we keep too still.<\/p>\n

Only light the kitchen light.<\/p>\n

Only sound the washing machine.<\/p>\n

I breathe detergent and rotting orange rind.<\/p>\n

I want to believe in us for longer than this\u2014<\/p>\n

Want to remember you smelling<\/p>\n

Like rain on a night that never rained,<\/p>\n

Your body earthed against white sheets,<\/p>\n

Colored a dozen shades of brown.<\/p>\n

Once we woke to an owl crying in the oak trees.<\/p>\n

Once I woke to you kissing me I\u2019m sorry, I\u2019m sorry<\/em>.<\/p>\n

For a while all of our love was making up,<\/p>\n

And when I held you, palms pressed<\/p>\n

To ribs lips to chest your hands gathering<\/p>\n

My hair like rosaries and your breath<\/p>\n

Crashing into my eardrum, I swear<\/p>\n

My teeth chattered and my skin<\/p>\n

Trembled with enough hurt<\/p>\n

To rock this body out to sea,<\/p>\n

To explode across the Milky Way<\/p>\n

And dizzy up the galaxy for good.<\/p>\n

Then every night, you\u2019ll have to seek me.<\/p>\n

For you, I will break open<\/p>\n

into a thousand fleets of light:<\/p>\n

My body curved, a crescent moon,<\/p>\n

And my heart purpled yet waking,<\/p>\n

a wildflower named for the shooting star.<\/p>\n

Anne Barngrover is currently teaching and working on her MFA in Creative Writing at Florida State University in Tallahassee, a city further south than the Deep South.\u00a0 She is originally from Cincinnati, Ohio.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coming Back to the Home I Made for the Woman I am Now Here, I know the white dogwood the redbud the sleet-bright fences fields tasseled in living gold. I have driven down these fields ones that look the same until you notice they are not, the matted fur and bone crunch of possum and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-april-2010","tag-anne-barngrover"],"yoast_head":"\nAnne Barngrover - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/2010\/04\/anne-barngrover\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Anne Barngrover - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Coming Back to the Home I Made for the Woman I am Now Here, I know the white dogwood the redbud the sleet-bright fences fields tasseled in living gold. I have driven down these fields ones that look the same until you notice they are not, the matted fur and bone crunch of possum and […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/2010\/04\/anne-barngrover\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-04-12T23:48:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"ElynnAlexander\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@elynnalexander\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"ElynnAlexander\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/2010\/04\/anne-barngrover\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/2010\/04\/anne-barngrover\/\",\"name\":\"Anne Barngrover - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-04-12T23:48:25+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-04-12T23:48:25+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/#\/schema\/person\/8aa50927b6e529e3d4bc18c86ca8c7a2\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/2010\/04\/anne-barngrover\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/2010\/04\/anne-barngrover\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/2010\/04\/anne-barngrover\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Anne Barngrover\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/\",\"name\":\"Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)\",\"description\":\"Archives Of Previous Issues\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/#\/schema\/person\/8aa50927b6e529e3d4bc18c86ca8c7a2\",\"name\":\"ElynnAlexander\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.elynnalexander.com\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/elynnalexander\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/author\/admin\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Anne Barngrover - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/2010\/04\/anne-barngrover\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Anne Barngrover - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)","og_description":"Coming Back to the Home I Made for the Woman I am Now Here, I know the white dogwood the redbud the sleet-bright fences fields tasseled in living gold. 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