Cynthia Anderson
Arrival
by Cynthia Anderson
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Cynthia Anderson has published 12 poetry collections, most recently Arrival (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2023) and Full Circle (Cholla Needles Press, 2022). Her poems appear frequently in journals and anthologies, and her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She has lived in California for over 40 years. www.cynthiaandersonpoet.com
Los Angeles—Fort Worth—Chicago
And then the earth says something, pushes upwards.
The plane’s shadow travels with it,
a flat slice of dark against the light.
Dry streambeds wind and coil,
immobile, yet animating the place
they come from, where we can’t follow.
Now the land glows red—
the hollow of a heart.
In cracks and eddies of rock
trees run out like ink on a roller,
the last marks intruding into sand.
Soon, the wasteland of agribusiness:
perfect circles in odd patterns,
a game with no winner, pieces
left at random on the board.
At sunset, a graying haze
forms a ring around the horizon.
Serene above human affairs,
clouds billow in moonlight,
group and ungroup. Truths
of wind and water eclipse
a mind filled with things
that haven’t happened yet
and that never will happen.
Charon Incarnate
He tried to forsake the water,
reborn in an ocean of sand—
rocking to sleep in that wasteland,
holding his knees, haunted
by his past life on Pain River.
The heat stalked his small body,
nearly claimed him right then—
in the black hours, his parents drove
to the mountains to save his life.
As he grew, a dry match ever drier,
he dreamt of the day he’d ignite.
That’s how Lake Woman found him—
stranded on shore, stiff as driftwood.
She flicked her raccoon tail
until he smoldered and sparked.
They honeymooned at Seneca,
where she endured his whims—
he wouldn’t swim or ride the ferry.
Her ultimatum came five years in,
then a girl and boy in quick succession.
He drove them to and fro
in silence, never asked directions,
became lost and more lost—
his eyes, hollow furnaces on fire.
