On a Beech Branch, Noon
West Point on the Eno City Park, Durham, NC
“Like tigers,” said one kid. I’d taken them walking, up the path and past two stout-bodied moths: heads crossed with burnt yellow lines, wing veins traced with the purple of rocks the river moves over, orange between, and pairs of creamy yellow spots; orange feet holding the branch, furred bodies curving inward to where they joined. Later, we passed by again: the two abdomens pulsed. “That looks wrong,” said one kid. Another: “Well, that’s what they’re doing.”
Anna Lena Phillips’s writing appears in BlazeVOX, Open Letters Monthly, The Anthology of Appalachian Writers, and others. A Pocket Book of Forms, her letterpress-printed, travel-sized guide to poetic forms, is forthcoming this summer. Her projects and pursuits are catalogued at To Do in the New Year.
qarrtsiluni 