you were not the only child
i didn’t have but the only one
i named
not Near Miss or Scare
but a good and proper name
a name i can talk to sometimes
reach for like whisky
guilty comfort that you aren’t here
to answer or mewl for affection
(which i manage even for living
daughters only in beats)
to you i ramble and pray
not-son
in whose perfection
i trust always
you who surely knows
which of my apologies
to believe
you who never came
and so
can never leave
Raised in Oklahoma, Anna Weaver lives in North Carolina with her two daughters. Her poems have appeared in Connotation Press, O-Dark-Thirty, One, and elsewhere. She writes as a former soldier in the US Army Reserve, a mind solidly imprinted by 20 years under big sky, and a woman “with loyalties scattered over the landscape.” Her poems have earned nominations for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets award. She is, so far as Google is concerned, America’s only open mic tourist, and has performed her poetry in 27 states and the District of Columbia.
