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Ploughed Under
we opened our arms
to the too-blue sky
and lifted our heads
in the parching wind
and row upon row
we wore out in the sun
roots shrinking up
into hands without fingers
lean stems crumpling
into dried ruins
muttering
it’s too late for us
then old men in tractors
ploughed us under
where we lie dreaming
of hindering the living
with our thin sighs of
we almost made it
***
From the Soil
Our tribe, which hoarded guns and tins,
Has slaughteered the wild ones for their sins
And raised up a beacon bright as gold;
Now only our stories can be told.
But sometimes out on patrol at twilight
I hear a humming from the soil;
I hear the songs that accuse us still,
And how they vow they always will.
***
Lullaby
Mother can’t make you
Make your bed,
Now that you're nuts
And Mother’s dead.
Lie on the cold hard rock
instead.
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Anna Sykora has been an attorney in New York and teacher of English in Germany, where she resides with her patient husband and three cats. To date she has placed hundreds of poems and stories in the small press. Writing is her joy. Motto: eat your rejections like pretzels.
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