Anny Jones

en plein air

for many years I fucked en plein air : not to transgress : felt neither fear nor frisson at being caught : seen in the open

it was a stinging desire for the places: within Lake Trasimene as the washerwomen on the shore sent carbolic bubbles across the water : crisp

autumn leaves in a ditch in Yorkshire : on haycocks : archaic : in a field

under moon & owls in Kenilworth : on golden cowslips under apple trees

in Normandy

I don’t remember the men : I remember the owls : the smell & caress

of the hay : blossom : dome of sky over lake : flesh under water

it was the only way I knew to enter the privilege of being unhumaned

dishumaned : unhoused from my history : our history

mouse : owl

owl : mouse

to enter a state of being that was reckless : not according to human mores

reckless because doomed

because returning to the human world is what breaks the heart

to know the heart must re-enter mere language

a cock & moon story

round this full valley

the moon ticks

its route precisely

& its bright-as-day shadows

turn the night crazy

three o’clock

& the cockerels

are frantic with duty

while the owls

ruffle the silver grass

with their little killings

& in your gaze too

I am small & edible

so wide the wings

so thin the quilt

ruffle the silver grass

with their little killings

& in your gaze too

I am small & edible

so wide the wings

so thin the quilt

folie à deux

in each of the ruined spaces

of the abbey on the Seine

nave & votive chapel

cloister & choir

bee orchids now

entice solitary bees

with precise mirrors of desire

each space holds

a slightly different orchid

echoing a slightly different bee

napped in plump brown velvet

a touch of crimson

a flare of hips

so intricate a passion

for handy dandy

which is the flower?

which is the bee?

& how we love to turn

& turn our selves

to be the fumbled

object of desire

Anny Jones grew up in a Great Expectations landscape in Kent but has lived in NH & Normandy for years. She is a poetry graduate of the MFA program at Pacific University. She writes in several forms—poetry, novels, lyric essays—& gives quirky, though scholarly, talks on matters like hay in art, literature, technology & history. Laundry ditto etc. etc.

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