Anna Catone
Sanctuary
Today the sun is up, everything I need set before me,
simple—the day just delivered up.
The hot water this morning in the shower,
at last, after two tries.
The woman who sits outside on the stoop
waving as if we’re old friends.
Yesterday, at the sanctuary, the top of a tree was broken off—
all woodpecker holes, lichen,
I thought, pecked to death by the needs of others—
strange gift, blessing—to be made new—
I had forgotten that.
Winter Night
At the music hall, the arm of your jacket
brushes against the sleeve of my dress
like the conductor whose body is the music.
That night our house lit from the inside…
snow plays on it in soft, white drifts.
Anna Catone‘s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Boston Review, Flyway, The Los Angeles Review, The Southampton Review, Tygerburning, and elsewhere. She is poetry editor at The Cortland Review and lives in Massachusetts where, in the fall, she will join the faculty at Boston College.