AnnaMarie Laforest
Stories, Poems, Art

​SHE WILL NOT FIGHT

 

She will open the windows

to blow out the dust,

she will bring in the flowers

-- so many stems --

and put the ladder against the tree

for bringing in the fruit.

She will let the neighbors in,

their butterflies and bugs 

welcome at her hearth.

She will show the children

how to paint with light

and urge them to take it home.

She will remind the babies

what they have to do.

She will not fight,

but she will change everything.

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She will put on her boots

and glasses

and visit all the countries.

She will soothe the ravaged

with bulbs and seeds from her pockets

quilts from her pack,

landscapes changing

as light from her eyes

filters to the ground,

new pools forming

as the indents of of her giant boots

fill with rain.

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She will come home

wash her hands at her sink

and put on her biggest hat

to go with us on our quests.

She is so tall

the flowers on her brim

illuminate our steps

and she will be there

to catch those who collapse.

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She will not fight.

She will change everything.

 

She Will Not Fight was published in Weaving Our Way Beyond Patriarchy: A Womancraft Publishing Compendium, UK, 2024.

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FIRST TASTE
 

Sitting

down on knees

creaky as the lid of her satin-lined trunk

an old, old woman holds

in a last calm moment,

her mother's lavish bridal dress

and long kid leather gloves,

their rows of pearls like the ones

she'll see, perhaps, tomorrow;

 

she holds and holds and holds

such a gift this holding,

and here she thought she had nothing left

to lose.

 

First Taste was published, in short prose form, in Vine Leaves Literary Journal, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; Issue 17; Spring, 2016.

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SUCCESS

 

Hair modeled

like a dipped cone

pace clipped

speech honed

in finely chiseled

tongue

hands flash

smartly sleeved

underscoring

well-buttoned points

 

only your eyes

sucked back and strung

with stain

betray you

like dishrags

in the drain

at home -

sticky

brittle

wrung.

​

​Success was published in The Broadkill Review, Milton, Delaware; Spring, 2017.

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 BACKYARD BIRDS

​

Green and purple berry patch

Matches the colors on her apron

But not the bright orange bucket

Her daughter carries along

As they pick and pick in preparation for a family picnic.

 

"Don't eat too many," she says to the girl,

"These will make a great pie

If there are enough,

And if the birds don't get them first."

 

The girl moves along slowly

Licking red stains from some fingers

Rubbing pricked others against her chest.

She looks up at the sky

At the circling crows

Murmuring

Their caws through clicking beaks

The way she's seen old women

Chew their prayers in church.

 

She sits suddenly on the ground

And points her longest finger

(Which isn't very long)

At her mother, and says,

"But birds have been around

Since dinosaurs, haven't they?

They deserve to get them first."

 

"What?" says the mother

Gathering the last

and turning to go.

 

Backyard Birds was published in Echoes Through the Stacks, Celebrating Five Years of Poems Penned at Poetry Evenings at Quince Orchard Library, Friends of the Library of Montgomery County, Md. 2024 

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JINGLE DANCE

 

White buckskin dress
long fringe hanging
from outstretched arms
fifty rows of beads
above her dancing feet
toe toe toe heel toe toe,
the dress is fashioned
after a great grandmother’s dream
her lost warrior
paint dried across his face
ax fallen from his hand
and 300 bullet shells
now rows and rows of jingle
flashing silver across the dress
toe toe toe heel toe toe
to the thunder drum
and lightning stick
she dreamed the otter strip
woven in his braids
long before jingle
when all that fell was rain.

Women surround her
drawn to the sacred dress,
turns out the pounded silvers
are tobacco lids from cans

folded
light as foil
yes, says Miss Crow Nation
eyes lowered under beaded crown,
it took
a lot
of chewing.

 

Jingle Dance was published in the serial VOX, aka [the cereal box]" by La Palabra Cafe-Press, Portland, Oregon; Summer, 2002.

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PINK RIBBON

 

To neutralize my crying palms
I clench this marble egg
with its cool veins
(how does it stay so cool?)
before it was polished
before I held it
someone must have hacked it out
of a fold in the calcium earth
but it remains so cool
as you must too
waiting for your results
while I
clench this marble egg
the stupid sweat in my lifeline making it
too slippery to reach out
and ask
or kiss
this marble egg.

 

I have another at the office.
I will roll it around my desk
and neglect to call you
from there
our windows face the same north
and I wonder if your view is as cool
as this marble
and which caves make such metamorphic rock -
your films might show
only a mottling
a mere Platonic shadow
and you could remain cool
couldn’t you?

 

I am clenching the marble egg for you,
if only I could unclench
the egg for you:
brave
even when you think you cannot
beautiful
even when you think you are not
better than this
will I tell you
as soon as
I get my hand to drop the egg
and all you can do is chalk it up
to fear
and wonder

 

of all your calcified friends
-bones, shells, leaves-
which of us
will cave in

 

first.

 

 

Pink Ribbon won an Art of Healing award in Grand Rapids, Michigan; Winter, 1995.

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