So what if I consumed the lexicon
like alphabet spaghetti, I confess
it turns me on to watch a smart man guess,
or make a typo, unaware it’s wrong.
And so I melt to see those extra ‘u’s,
those missing ‘i’s, each helpless, misplaced letter —
such cute phonetic errors make me wetter.
Lose spell check and I’m easy to seduce!
Perhaps I think that men who try, but fail,
to write a decent sentence must be tough,
built for all that sexy outdoors stuff,
unburdened by my hang-ups on detail.
Could be I’ve just got history with guys
who mixed up ‘their’ with ‘there” and ‘its’ with ‘it’s’
while those good spellers turned out to be shits,
control freaks, or — forgive me — undersized.
Dangerous Liaison
The kissing couple stood on the hard shoulder,
not ten yards from the place marked by a cross
where someone else was killed. There’s nothing bolder
than lovers’ hubris — they can’t picture loss.
The rush-hour traffic seemed, as one, to brake,
arrested by their legs and arms entwined,
or by this knowledge: all their deaths would take
was one car passing on the inside, blind.
It was so fitting — lovers need the guts
to stand tall, stick their fingers up at fate,
even if the whole world thinks they’re nuts
and they’re still kissing when it’s far too late.
What fools they were! What fools all lovers are!
And how I wished to be them, from my car.
Anna Evans’ poems have appeared in the Harvard Review, Atlanta Review, Rattle, and 32 Poems. She gained her MFA from Bennington College, and is the Editor of The Raintown Review. Her chapbooks Swimming and Selected Sonnets are available from Maverick Duck Press.
