Desire

Anna laura reeve

Driving home from the dentist, the sycamore
off Valley View looms suddenly on the left,
naked as a flame, pale body bent and reaching
over the land I keep shadowed beyond myself
somewhere. How many responsible things
have I done in a row? Did I go to the dentist
just now? To be diligent, to be careful, and
was I proud of myself? Dark valley between
towers—when did it last send its emissary?
Or when did I last ride down, searching?
I’m not the first to say it—having a child
turns the mist in that place evil. Such a thing
as too-fresh air. Her fevers and wordlessness
turn me upward, to the hills, where I would die
pushing and bleach my bones in the sun-
drenched land, as you would if you had a child.
Now, poles are shifting. I’m head-down on the
wheel of fortune, wrists thighs and shoulders
tied to the rim dipping beneath murky reed
and sedge bank, down into the dark land
under the dark water. I want. Another moment,
and I will want to want. A slip of the water’s
skin and I will want to slip my skin, I’ll be
the hunter, I’ll open my mouth and everything
but breath will form around me.

Anna Laura Reeve is the author of Reaching the Shore of the Sea of Fertility (Belle Point Press). Winner of the 2022 Adrienne Rich Award for Poetry, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Terrain.org, The Journal, and others. She was a finalist in the 2023 Greg Grummer Poetry Contest and the 2022 Ron Rash Award, and is getting into tarot part-time. She lives and gardens near the Tennessee Overhill region, traditional land of the Eastern Cherokee.