ANABEL HAFSTAD
WRITES.

Can you imagine taking someone’s life

fostered from the minerals of this earth

birthed through canals of red hot flesh

held against…

Under a sharp polar moon 

I lose the life 

I never had.

It’s pared painfully from me, 

layer by layer, as mother-of-pearl…

Hot bucket of soap poured like fluid quartz onto the sidewalk, 

Cleansed steam rising from the pavement by the jeweler’s.

Wrinkled men…

Did it hurt

To be Plucked

From the Totality of Atoms—

That communal Sea of existence

robbed of a few billion Billion…

Last night I called you on a sham number in a time that never was

I said I’m at that restaurant that…

I have known the merciless melancholy of computer screens,

Identical in their lineup, dolor of keypads and HDMI cords,

All the misery…

The spring sun pouring in big blinding bars

Across the bare mattress and I lying

Stretched out in the noon shine like…

We’ve temporarily lost our wings.

So I trot crudely under an ashen sunset,

An almost full moon up in a milk-blue sky,

I’m back again. 

I’m doing another round, as one does, and this time I’m what humans like to call a dendrite, which…

Over in the neighbor’s garden I see the following scene:

A long and quiet table gleaming in the morning sun;

a…

Tonight you beckon me quietly,

like the green of neon traffic lights 

and green – green glimmering 

against a mystery sky of…

In passing I see the sunset a lot 

or the kind of steep light 

right before dusk sets in, 

when cosmic rays…

I’ve watched them 

tame the magnificent blue curl

which is a beast so frightful and so wild.

They brave white salt on…

Champagne-sprinkled air

Light of flowers

Hail solidified in gold –

This is what they’ll give to you

for being who you…

I create the subtle

the miniscule;

poems that are like

florid chuckles of little nothings –

silky chewing gum bubbles

blown up…

1990s

Back in the early 1990s my grandparents would 

spoil me with deep-red strawberries, sweet and cold 

with sugar on top and…

This Sunday morning I opened the door to the yard

and was welcomed by a green bubble of perfection

frozen in sun-tickled…

As the sun set glimmering on my life

I made myself small

but the earth monumental

and this, my friend,

is how 

The Harvard Business Review suggests that

the first secret to Success In Life is showing up.

Well I disagree

I think the…

I feel so lost

as I put the kettle on

again.

The room is

a clean white

like fresh linen

and the…

She closed her eyes, breathed lovely things, 

her hungry lungs chock-full with dreams

of clasping hands which, letting go,

gave room to…

Close your eyes and 

sit again on that rickety plastic chair   

as the warm blueness of sky spans

across the lake and…

That there are a million reasons not to

be in it. 

That it is all warm animal, my only 

possible home.

That…

God’s liturgy of liquid drums 

on the roof of our private chapel 

where you nap, and on the roof 

of the Vatican’s…

The future to us was sunlight on polished hardwood floors

fresh and capacious in an empty apartment

We moved in, slipped off…

the meteor 

has already hit

this light-boned clay bowl

is already broken 

forests of fern just evolved

now burnt and obliterated

worlds…

— CYCLES

He says I’m old and I don’t believe 

My sun is setting it’s

Rising

He says I’m going

towards sunrise—

And now

The long winter is behind us—

Everything blue-toned and barren, bleak.

Days dark as tunnels,

Nights hard and crystallized as…

One deep and dark-starred evening 

we – the silly little dog and I – trot 

through the haunted house of night.

And…

S’Ruusche vode Chroonä im Wind:

s’weckt öppis i mir

tüüf im Innerschte drin.

Öppis uuralts –

So alt wie d’Schichte vome Gschtai.

Roosters, roosters

– you mythical things, 

waking our souls 

to the hours fate must bring

At the earliest sign

of the sun’s…

Plastic flowers through the window

blood orange and eggshell                          

The clinking of shiny bicycle bells 

on a blue-skied ride to the post office. 

We are eagles; this town is ours as…

In the best of hours

I stand with my rubber boots planted

firmly in the morning

and – gawking at the yellow…

Just because it is

small

does not mean it is 

without

meaning.

I know, sweetheart, 

you cannot believe

right now

in the wide lush summers 

slumbering deep 

within you – do not worrymy friend…

If 

you are a woman and you say that

you don’t need feminism

you think feminism is the wrong word for feminism

I rise at 6.30 AM.

The kind sun is still busy elsewhere.

Until she has time for us so far up North

At night I lay awake

and think about all the things

I am going to do to my

poem.

Said one to the other:

“What kinda girls do you like?”

And when 

the other looked puzzled 

and did not reply

the…

It is a sun-sparkling spring Sunday

on which the crown of my birch tree is 

a curtain of green glitter and 

the…

Leaving you

I’m thinking about dyeing

my hair the color of 

chocolate

painting my nails a 

glaring red

and walking around

in…

This whole city again unconscious. Each night,

millions of dark windows and behind them

millions of strange bodies suspended in a nightly…

A Prose Poem

You sit dangerously bent over another pink oil pastel pope. It’s the third one you’ve painted in Rome. The…

We tread lightly together we 

tread unspeaking, you and me, 

a hushed thread of genes 

spun through time sublimely

at ease— we

Headlights pouring two Lucent rivers

Onto the crystalline blue of an Icy road

That Juncture

When the Tires underneath

Lose grip

Weightless 

— URGE AND URGE AND URGE

you must know everything immediately you

must not disappoint your loved ones

this day must be…

Is it dead because

It is dead—

silent

As you stand an alien displaced in the white expanse of 

Nothing 

Only an…

Is Time to Life

What Food is 

to the Body?

Not tormentor;

Not token of scarcity;

Not a threat to be monitored

There is such quiet grace in each presence anew, 

in stillness. Each morning at the break of dawn 

I shall ease my…

First thing in the morning

I pick up the dog’s fresh

turd in the sun.

My legs brush knee-high

weeds, warm and…

Outside the spring and inside the light.

To my right the roundness of leaves; 

a bright green firework of plant money, 

Chinese.…

Up by the pine tree on the rock

they live                         …

Last day of our summer honeymoon.

We sit musing on a mound of sand and

observe.

Against flat disks of ashen clouds:

I have begun to drink

my cold water 

from crystal lowball glasses –

the ones we got 

for our wedding

one sun-dusted…

Merry-bellied mother bear knows it – 

all miracle of birth occurs 

in guarded isolation.

And I know I am well underway

for…

Forgive me, my memory 

of you is fading (this

is how far away you are 

now). Say, if you will,

wasn’t it…

One night I can’t take it anymore

I wake up bathed in sweat, I pant

Suddenly I remember

everything

I’ve done to…

You shoot out of the smoke-swirling pinball cloud

that is this rubicund rich neon night and flashes

of golden bitter beer and…

Four scrawly lines

a fat, black oval

and a yellow triangle–reminds me of 

cheese

those are the legs

this is the body

First

I watered myself down

I wanted to make myself more

digestible 

for you

until I was merely

a hint of this…

The sun fills the small kitchen,

infuses every one of its dusty corners

with a brilliance of glaringly white brightness.

I catch…

Ages

ago

I drew

a

line

to make

sure

I was

never

gonna

call you

mine.