Annie Menebroker

Very Small Slices

Buddha is always calm because he puts
a shot of brandy in his black tea.
I am always anxious because I wonder
if the goat chewing on tin in the
parking garage has come to eat
my soup cans. The mixture of truth
and stream of consciousness makes
a strange cake, which I promise to eat
in very small pieces. And the church bells,
that rang out so beautifully when I drove
here, distance themselves from me with an
attitude of sameness. How much are we
missing just by having things around us so
unchanged, even the dropping sun becomes
a quick song that the stars forget to memorize.

 

This is a poem included in Annie’s last chapbook The Long Ride Home, by Lynne Savitt’s Gravida Press in honor of her 80th birthday, March 30, 2016. With respect to Medusa’s Kitchen and WTF for publishing some of the work in the collection.