Annie Stenzel
“So evenings die, in their green going”
each to its sleep, a fate decreed
by every bright beginning. Nothing
is allowed to last more than the requisite
span of minutes, because time came first,
tick-tock
tick-tock
riverine and relentless. Your hand
outstretched does nothing to arrest it
and no matter how you tell your eyes
to attend, unblinking, you will miss
one moment, then another.
Mostly I miss the whole of dawn
these days, favoring the drape
of fine dreams my nights pretend
to offer. Sometimes the night-mind does provide
richness, and I yearn to linger
in those landscapes. But they’re gone before
I more than stir my ache that won’t permit
two hours in the same position:
toss, turn. Turn, toss.
Twenty-four hours allotted for a given
day, but how many instants
are an evening’s portion? How long
can I cling to the crepuscule
before a deep night sweeps it away?
Author's Note: Title from Wallace Stevens’s poem, “Peter Quince at the Clavier.”Dead end
I was behind the wheel
and there were even signs
to warn me where I was headed
and to propose a different
destination. And yet I aimed
unerringly in the direction
of pain, steering by landmarks
I could recognize from other journeys
down the same road.
The location might as well have been
labeled: welcome to the desert
of comfortlessness. Sand. Rock. Mirage.
Why am I here? I know there are other deserts
where things live, where plants grow,
where various beings even relish
the heat, unwilting. Not around these parts—
pang after ache after throb, each
of an unfixed duration.
Error is its own exclusive habitat.
What makes us wince
is the way time sticks to its guns
once a mistake is made. No turning
back, and correction is not the same thing
as not having erred in the first place.
Sticky. On this rough route, the terrain
might rip out the undercarriage
as you travel, trying to get to that place
where you didn’t do the wrong thing
after all.
Annie Stenzel (she/her) is a lesbian poet who was born in Illinois, but did not stay put. Her second full-length collection, Don’t misplace the moon, was released from Kelsay Books in July, 2024. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in print and online journals in the U.S. and the U.K., including Book of Matches, Does It Have Pockets, Gavialidae, Kestrel, Night Heron Barks, One Art, Rust + Moth, Saranac Review, SWWIM, The Lake, Thimble, and UCity Review. A poetry editor for the online journals Right Hand Pointing and West Trestle Review, she lives on unceded Ohlone land within walking distance of the San Francisco Bay.
