Anna Evans is a British citizen but permanent resident of New Jersey, where she is raising two daughters. She has had over 100 poems published in journals including The Formalist, The Evansville Review, Measure and e-zines such as Verse Libre Quarterly.
Anna has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize and was a finalist in the 2005 Howard Nemerov sonnet award. Her chapbook Swimming is available from Maverick Duck Press.
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Structure
Tasteful, he thought. The book (Ovid) obscured
anything pornographic, although she was nude
and grinning boldly at the camera. His reflex
did what reflexes will. Meanwhile he looked
with something more like love upon the skin
that showed—elbows, knees of course and chin.
The structure of her body, readable beauty;
her artifice more of a mystery. Did it matter
another man had taken this? (Why choose Ovid?)
It proved he supposed only that she’d been loved
before. He expected that. Perhaps he should ask
for his own photo, something contemporary, a task
he suspected she’d do willingly. Meanwhile
this was fine, he thought, the blameless bones, the smile.
Were-wife
But she was not made for any man,
And she never will be all mine
—Edna St Vincent Millay, “Witch Wife”
A succubus has settled at her core;
blindly, it turns to flatten out a nest
behind her knocking ribs. She asks the best
doctors for help; they snigger, charge her more—
such charlatans! In time the beast will gnaw
her hollow. Meanwhile she can’t eat or rest
for servicing this uninvited guest
who holds her hungers hostage to its claw.
She’d hoped one man would be the single meal
she could make last; the truth is his appeal
endured for years but now she cannot bear
the cravings. Damn this inner parasite!
Its urge for man flesh rises till it bites
and all it leaves are bones and grease and hair.
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