Anne-Adele Wight
Anne-Adele Wight is a Philadelphia poet.
Anne-Adele Wight has written two chapbooks and a long poem in sections, Liberty’s Creature. She just finished a full-length manuscript and has begun looking for a publisher. Her work has appeared in American Writing, Philadelphia Poets, Tabula Rasa, Shrike, Mad Poets Review, Philadelphia Writers’ Conference Anthology, and The Dariens. She lives in Philadelphia and is Vice President of the series Poets and Prophets. In her daily life she works as an editor and lives with her husband and two cats. The voices of wild creatures help her discover her poems. She is thankful.
Buy Anne-Adele Wight’s new book of poems: Sidestep Catapult. Visit BalzeVox to purchase the book.
Please click HERE for Anne-Adele Wight’s famous CAT FEEDING SONG
And again HERE for Anne-Adele’s appearance on
JUPITER 88
Fighting under Bulbs in April
Tradition how veins ride under your wrist like ships
trepidation how we all pull toward the sea
marked with elemental colors
replace ourselves in a cave every winter
under penalty of spring
nothing left to chance
Hibernation arterial secret
stroked in fur
how we’re all made alike
new bears crack flagstones breaking out of their born cave
cute only at first
code rewrites itself at ground level
fighting under bulbs in April angry fluorescent
fighting over stone bread that keeps disappearing
over how many lovers can love spring at the same time
Listen to the sun hum its dark side
true color amethyst
feel pulsing all around you like a maze of yarn captive
pulses colliding in an angry hive
cinderblock
back alley
clanging door
knifepoint
nowhere left
magnolia smells like a liquid you can’t drink
what will you miss by jumping off a catwalk into the river?
faces flow on top of the current
seven billion blue as veins
calling
Leopard Flower
Preliminary estimate control
half traditional, half peeled
your arbitrary factor
raises a crane over your head listen upstairs
arbitrary something you made up
the way cranes are made up
research into runes brings us
under birch trees this side of a hanging
commute sentence to beating with birch twigs
at a science fair sanitary
in season moment when earth bleeds from its root
did you really request an avalanche?
raw materials in toolshed
you think you know what’s there
A girl steps into the locked ring of birch trees
a woman looks for blood she’ll never see
pregnancy slips out of being
someone keeps handing on the green scarf
decorate me all over with black roses
leopard flower
she drew a rune over her uterus to blot out cancer
gave birth half covered on her back in a hailstorm
under peeling birch bark
are we fine now?
claws growing under hypnosis
No advance control no correct estimate
pre-meeting veers off subject
did you order animals for the toolshed?
they’ll split it open.
Garden Party Revisit
Revisit context under terrace as a garden party
bring it home
coated with pollen in your favorite color
plants convey root light on your frequency
our parents left us in egg cups
crated on the outskirts of Antarctica
how we’ve grown into planet-like objects
everyone wants to get rid of
more trouble than Pluto
they’re burning seeds
we’re out here mingling while they burn seeds
Can you grow another heartbeat?
can we exchange parts with a plant?
remap inner geography organ by organ
yours now mine
is this how it feels?
I’m telling you
leave the seeds alone
Birds land on an island to become black flowers
ellipse begins as a steel belt we ride in faith
around snake eye swiveling to watch us
pivot on your back
rhythm splices you in place blossoming orbit
shoot flowers under your tongue
taste a new kind of metal
hear what you taste
hear metal climbing a green stem
toning in open flowers
hear metal sounding on ocean floor
hear metal ringing in the Mariana Trench
chiming on peaks above the Tibetan Plateau
hear your world build on metal
taste harmony taste chords
metal in dominant seventh
sit on a bench to play drums
music torrent brings fish pouring through cornfield
brings bull with tail full of summer seed
Can we still hide in the garden?
can we hide from the party?
be careful whose back you ride
we mine seed out of context and burn it
become a stone figure
under eight-point star drawn on black paper
watch it shine through flight feathers
revisit context
leave the seeds alone
remember lavender strobing under your skin?
Garden Party Famine
Wear sunglasses with systemic lipstick
do you hate parties?
trees and sky turn green blue like mold
people gather to watch sunset through three fountains
poison guests randomly
some ravenous, some not
instead of moonrise
glass plate overhead spirals purple and teal
procession of left-handed people
searches for turtles under light from the spillway
if you eat or drink in the castle
this party will never end
why are sky and trees falling away?
Landscape Design
Inconstancy of earthmover and cherry picker
draws blood
how we turn the yard inside out to clean it
pack our DNA in pewter
let current invade bone structure
internal organs begin to show in my hair
can I atone for self-deception by throwing wood off a cliff?
we hang pieces of river to dry on a clothesline
talk about flowers
while a hand blue as disease runs up our back
orbital camera captures from space
red sand spreading like the Wall of China
dinosaur eye looked through me before I was born
that scar like fur
where fingers touch my central spine
how black stars roar in turned soil
design the next garden as a stairway flowering underground
mirror gives back a sine wave made of grass.
