Poetry by Ansley Clark

Signs

 

 

How to arrange myself in a pleasing

yet adequately compelling way

 

how does interiority fare

when I walk through the world    touching things

 

green stalks    real running water

the scent of plain noodles

 

configurations of flowers and space    the void marked

by bright squares

 

of people’s activities    everything

the technology collective gives us

 

consensual allowances into

distant women’s lives    feel intimate and generous    I like

 

to see what kind of day someone is having

there are so many different ways to have a day

 

how we carry ourselves

maybe has some effect    the decision to

 

take a photo of my face against blue   is this interesting

enough    is this    is this

m

m

m

m

A Room

 

 

Two women hold secret meetings

in the old boathouse

because there is nowhere else left    growing up

a woman lived in the woods

behind our house    I’m trying to argue

for wasted spaces

as allowances    I will buy

or take    what is not wanted

inhabit a small morning

of light edges    not bound

by anyone to listen

m

m

m

m

Ansley Clark recently graduated with her MFA from University of Colorado Boulder, where she also teaches creative writing. She is the author of the chapbook Geography (dancing girl press 2015). Her poems and essays have appeared in or are forthcoming from Typo, Black Warrior Review, Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM, Sixth Finch, interrupture, and elsewhere.