Fall 2014, Volume 17

Poetry by Ann Neuser Lederer

Mowing the Labyrinth

All of our ceremonies begin at dusk.

When we walk, we huddle together,
    our true numbers not to be counted.
We pull off our costumes,
    so as not to be recognized..
We hang out our flags, to blend in.

After the ritual sips, the chaos begins:
    Arms flung up to nonexistent mothers.
Lamps lit, all through the night.

The wailing we do only
    when the windows are shut tight.
The wounds, only in unobservable spots.

In the morning, the butchery is evident.
    Remains of what has been mowed in the dark.

Pathways with tufts in between: Indecipherable
    semicircles.  Earthworms’ neurons.

The frost-maddened bumblebee veers unexpectedly.

Train sounds, moans
    from windows finally opened.

The silence of the missing midnight planes

 

 

 

BIO: Ann Neuser Lederer, was born in Ohio and has also lived and worked in
Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Kentucky as a Registered Nurse. Prior to
nursing she studied art and earned degrees in Anthropology. From early
childhood she has loved to hear, read and write poems. She has kept a
journal, which sometimes includes notes and drafts for poems, since an
English class assignment at age sixteen. Her poetry and nonfiction
appear in online and print journals; anthologies such as Best of the
Net, A Call To Nursing, Pulse, and The Country Doctor Revisited; and
in her chapbooks: Approaching Freeze, The Undifferentiated, and Weaning
the Babies.