Menu Switch
Poems

La Garde Freinet

By Hedia Anvar From Issue No. 2

Sitting me by a fountain
perched like a wine
glass sprinkling mossy
droplets of night and heat
I breathe in wet stone
you stammer a bit
old hilly village all
cobblestone and shutters
rolling with dead
festivities and light trot
of the mammoth
dreadlock dog
your voice loud
spanning the square
telling me how good it is
being friends again
my face glistening
cotton candy sugar
pal a mine, you say
what’s new in your life
all along itching to tell me
what’s new in yours.

Blohene.
You say her name
then a girlish titter
out of your
big-shouldered brawn
“it means flower.”
I know Blohene
my smile cramping
red-hair bohemian
you’re into that type
punks hippies
little glistening
gypsies.

Rounding the fountain
back to the pension
I smile a face-length rip
a great night, you beam
as my inner cheeks bleed
I nod louder
than your loudest voice
so you don’t hear my head
hollering accept it
just accept it
banana-size fish circle
the water fresh and icy
I want to shove
your head under
next to the orange one
the color of boheme
Blohene’s hair
even though a fish seems
to take swim
in my own stomach.

You pound on the door
when I lock myself in
to kneel by the toilet
but what makes it happen
isn’t the big-boned redhead
or yesterday’s kiss.
It’s when
you bellow
did I do a job
of ruining your night
that my throat
juts forward
and out of my mouth
comes swimming
an orange fish.

About Hedia Anvar More From Issue No. 2