Ann Zoller

During That Time Near Water

Rain slides peacock green
all day.  Your pod boat floats

inside veins of the land,
filling the jar.  You sit

in a rose nightgown 
on the porch swing,

aching for a smile
from the sun. 
 
The river trembles,
swelling to the music.

The boat travels so close,
you know it’s time.

Walking Into Light

She hid the bones in a Birkenstock shoe box
high on a shelf in the spare bedroom closet,
bones broken in the sledding accident,
bones broken when the cow kicked her leg,
all those bones she kept secret.

She hears again the death rattle of the soul
as it hit her mother’s chest trying to break free,
a harsh noise that broke the room
and crawled into her skin.

She feels the edge of pain and joy
rolled together like the hum of an organ
playing Brahms. We hobble through days

crippled, balancing the glint of a grandchild
against the suicide of a son.
Thorns fade to allow the blossom.

She gathers lilacs in the garden,
places them in a vase
on the dining room table.

Ann Zoller has poems in Bryant Literary Review, Coe Review, Croton Review, Georgetown Review, Negative Capability, Nimrod, Poets On, Webster Review, and Xanadu. She is also the author of Answers from the Bowing Moon and New Pony on a Carousel. contact