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Prairie Schooner 78.1 (2004) 56-58



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Four Poems

Annie Finch


Two Into Two

Are we one or are we two,
face in fingers, hand in arm?

Are we one or are we two,
since your harming is my harm?

One turned to two when I found you,
and two came from one when my will came in.

One came from two when we smelled and saw,
and two turned to one when we heard a sound.

Hand over head in a peaceful place,
(I came from you until we found me),

Are we two or are we one,
since your harming is my harm? [End Page 56]


Home-Birth

Home has a body since you urged it free,
calling the cosmos imperiously
(This is my body which you caused to break
open at home on my bed in the dark)
Home is a birthplace since you came to me,
pouring your head down through me like a soul
(Out from the womb where the wild rushes start
in a quick steady heartbeat not from my own heart)
I gave you till you had your body to take;
home has a body since you urged it free,
so I open my body to you, and I see
(and held you to make you till you were its mark)
home is the birth place that you gave to me.

Banshee Baby

As the ghosts followed me throughout my head,
I shut your door and closed you in the room.
You were alone, and not a word was said

till you began to scream in panic. Dead
or living, banshees always lead to tombs.
As the ghosts followed me throughout my head,

I saw them waver, curse, and listen, read
the signs of our survival, ran to the room
where you were alone. And not a word was said [End Page 57]

as your gasps all spoke from my childhood
and solace all rushed out from my own womb.
Then the ghosts followed me out of my head;

I could hold you. I could feel the shame that led
from our opposition to a newer doom.
We were alone and not a word was said,

save words I heard myself still saying, bred
in me - but now, they echoed like the room
where ghosts had followed me around my head.
I was alone, and not a word was said.


Night Watch on the Inland Sea

The fog means I can barely see a thing,
except two black trees that touch on the lawn
in prongs of shadow, curling folded arms
in light immediate as sprinkled moon.

I know they could be waiting: inland trees
have miles that come to them as they pound straight
below the prairie ocean to the root.
I stand not waiting, crying while they wait.






Annie Finch is the author of Eve (Story Line P) and editor of An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art (U of Michigan P). Her new book, Calendars, is just out from Tupelo Press.

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