THREE POEMS BY JoAnn Anglin 

JoAnn Anglin of Sacramento writes poems about nature, human and otherwise. A
member of Los Escritores del Nuevo Sol (Writers of the New Sun), The Third
Sunday Poets, the California Writers Club, Sacramento Chapter, and the
Sacramento Poetry Center, she is also a life member of the Friends of the
Library. Her poems have been in Poetry Now, the Suttertown News, the
Anthology of the Third Sunday Poets, and the Anthology of 100 Poems About
Sacramento. She writes articles, too, that have been published in  the
Sacramento Bee, Sacramento Magazine, and the Arts Reporters.  She is the
poet-teacher at Shriners Children's Hospital of Northern California and is
co-host, with Tom Goff and Nora Staklis, of the PoemSpirits series at the
Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento. JoAnn has read at several
venues in the Sacramento Area and is included in the upcoming anthology,
Vozes del Nuevo Sol.

Currency

When you come through the door,
I just wait 
And I watch to see how you hold
your purse.  Will your bag spill
out hard coins of anger? Patience?
Friendship?
Or only the small change of resentment?

Did you lose, or shred, those
promissory notes of history, our pledges
of trust that we could
always cash with each other.

If those notes are ripped, if lost
forever, I need to know.

Is there a way to rewrite those pledges,
to make loans of love, of loyalty to
each other again? Can we use the same
currency, create once more a
medium of exchange?


Deadly Fragrance

The killing scents you wear
slide across my cheek, encircle my heart.
I recall the long ago cologne of Lucky
Strikes and Pabst Blue Ribbon –  flavors
inhaled with my baby’s breath, surreptitious
sips from tumblers left
by party guests

Wit, or wisdom’s clever words, I forget
yet remember the whiff of whiskey in
the golden crescent stain,
the biting scent of burgundy spilled
on imitation lace

I know you are here by the
scent of stale warm beer and
cigarette smells that precede you

Now I lean into your sour shirt,
lick your nicotine fingertips,
inhale the warmth of liquor sweat rising
in the air.
Your pheromones of death ensnare me, take
  me back to infancy.  Lured by your
deadly cologne I long for the remembered warm
death scent of you, long for
your perfume of death.


Front Porch Haircut

Bare the vulnerable nape of the
neck to your girl, your brother,
your friend.

Carefully clip off doubt and
last week’s seedy memories,
scissored away to drift to
and through the porch boards,
added to a hidden
hair hoard that makes a soft nest.

Let the radio play music that
drifts out the window.
Be aware of the morning sun
moving up the curve of the sky,
of neighbors and strangers
meandering by.

Trust the one who holds the sharp
instruments. Accept the hands that
turn your head slightly, lift your chin
or gently push on your rounded crown,
hands that comb, part, arrange your
hair like a magic sculpted substance.
Chat about insignificant everyday
details that fall away with the floating hair.

Relax as the trimming and snipping
shape a growing, unfocused optimism:
   where, you don’t know;
   how, you can’t guess,
But soon you will surely have
somewhere to go. You will be ready
and heads will turn when you get there
Because you will know
that you do look good!

Copyright JoAnn Anglin