Saturday, March 28, 2020: National Women's Month: Anna Cates' two poems "Legend" and "Some Kill"

Legend

A Japanese legend says that if you 

can’t sleep at night it’s because 

you’re awake in someone else’s dream . . .

above a valley, crisp with pines

atop a hill, taken by frost

an old abode groans like dry bones

twilight descends—

gossamer curtains flutter

in unswept corridors

few traverse anymore

here sounds never

punctuate the silence

grandfather clocks stop

dictating time

I become that legend

I cannot sleep at night

I lie awake in your dreams

© 2020 Anna Cates 

Some Kill

clothes on

others savage naked

some only feel

the wind

how cold it blows

making even clothing

nothing

gossamer curtains flutter

in unswept corridors

few traverse anymore

I kill

I feel

I keel over . . .

am I fulfilled?

have I fulfilled?

summer to cruelest winter

trees root through earth

holding it down

keeping it in its place

against heartless gusts

wind takes the dust

© 2020 Anna Cates

Bio:  Anna Cates is a graduate of Indiana State University (M.A. English and Ph.D. Curriculum & Instruction/English) and National University (M.F.A. Creative Writing).  Her first collections of poetry and fiction, The Meaning of Life and The Frog King, were published by Cyberwit Press, and her second poetry collection, The Darkroom, by Prolific Press.  Her collection of previously published haibun, The Golem & the Nazi, recently appeared via Red Moon Press.  She is a member of the Tower Poets of the Yellow Springs, Ohio area and currently resides in Wilmington with her two cats, Freddie and Fifi.  She teaches education and English online as an adjunct professor.