groner_two_poems_print.html

GREETINGS FROM MY INNER WEREBAT 


Is there a word more terrifying 
than housewife? More shameful 

than panties? Is premeditation 
a good idea? I don’t regret 

my tramp stamp, though, 
I sometimes reflect on hairdos 

I have known and wonder 
what I shall title my memoir. 

DREAMS OF BABIES


What I can’t remember, I make up 
over toast. I’ve left them behind. 
I’ve folded and washed them. Hid them. 
Lost them. Feet like soft thistles. Heads 
empty as jars. The dreams began early, 
when I was a child. I’m filled 
with their hands, their sucking sweet 
mouths, a want I deny upon memory.

Anya Groner's poetry, stories, and essays can be read in journals including The Atlantic, The Oxford American, Juked, and Guernica. She teaches writing at Loyola University in New Orleans and is a fiction editor at Terrain.org and the book review editor for The New Orleans Review. To read more of her writing, check out AnyaGroner.com.