Poems by Anne Evans
Archives: by Issue | by Author Name
For the Vultures
by Anne Evans
From Canary Fall 2022
Anne lives in the South Platte River Valley at 5,351 feet near the Rocky Mountain Foothills. The South Platte was originally called Niinéniiniicíihéhe by the native Arapaho people who lived on its banks. Along its banks she encounters myriad waterfowl, birds of prey, and native species including a family of playful muskrats and a few lone herons.
They are the first to spy it,
draped like a woven necklace on the fence,
its vectors glinting gold and copper in the sun:
a geometry of muscle, might of scales,
laid out in a wake of glory.
Its purloined rattle tucked in farmer’s pocket,
a trophy for a child.
Above in an avalanche of circles -
the venue spirals down, slicing
the blue with black wings,
in a narrowing gyre. They light
the fence as a murder of crows,
caws from the corn.
Beaking their way through snakeskin,
scalpel precise, they shred the
sinewy meat. Archaic beauty, their
clean red faces flash against black plume,
bald design for this sacred duty;
nothing is wasted, a merited feast.
© Anne Evans
The Horses on Meadowbrook Road
by Anne Evans
From Canary Fall 2022
The horses lived in a field surrounded
by a small city growing north and east.
As the city swelled you would think the field
would wane, but instead, it waxed like
a wide, flat moon, and the horses grazed
content in knowing their fences.
As a child, I knew the destinations
(piano lessons, swimming pool, but not
church or school) that shuttled us past
that wink of wild: those soft muzzles and
swishing manes, the whisk of a tail,
the painted pony, the palomino gold.
And so I waited, impatient for Tuesdays, when
we drove by the brief break in concrete
and brick, and the vast grass bloomed
against sky and wind, and the horses might
be standing in the left corner flicking their ears
or grazing midfield munching clover or
trotting or dozing or nuzzling each other
or arching their gentle necks over the fence
near the road so that our wide eyes could
meet through forelock and window with wonder.
© Anne Evans