BLOOM

by Annie Cowell

Songul Yucesoy's home in Samandag, southern Turkey was destroyed when a 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck a month ago. —BBC, March 6, 2023

She raises soap sudded hands

from the washing bowl,

places them on her hips

and stretches out her aching back.

Behind her the house tilts,

crippled, less solid than its shadow, 

window frames sagging 

between cracks like craters.

On the table, rescued, somehow

unscathed, is a picture.

It is a shell-framed souvenir of life before,

when the table wasn’t orphaned

to the street. 

Now, the fruit bowl she hates

for its dull colours and chipped rim

sits beside the picture, uncomfortable,

with its solitary orange.

A white mould is beginning to blossom

on its skin.

She lifts the dying orange, 

cups it in her hands like a stunned bird

and walks the short distance 

to where her neighbours’ family inhabit

two makeshift tents, cobbled together

near the rubble of their home.

Her daughter’s friend, he of the wild eyes

and cheeky tongue, lowers his head

as she approaches, tamed and silenced

by the shame of survival.

The lump in her throat prevents speech,

so she dusts the orange 

bloom 

with her finger, takes the young boy’s hand

places the orange there. 

Squeezes. 

It’s the least, and the most, she can do.

Author’s note: Some of the events in this poem are imagined, but they were suggested by the facts in the BBC’s March 6 article “Turkey Earthquake: Survivors living in fear on the streets.” The suffering continues, even as the earthquake’s aftermath slips from the headlines.

Annie Cowell lives by the sea in Cyprus with her husband and rescue dogs. She has been published by Popshot Quarterly, Gastropoda Lit, The Milk House, and many others. She is a BOTN nominee. Her debut pamphlet Birth Mote(s) was published by Alien Buddha Press in 2022. Splashing Pink from Hedgehog Press is forthcoming later this year. @AnnieCowell3

QUEUED

by Annie Cowell

The queue for Queen Elizabeth II's lying-in-state is visible from space in this photo taken Sept. 16, 2022. (Image credit: Satellite image ©2022 Maxar Technologies @Maxar via Space.com.)

We feel

it is a very

British thing,

the queue.

That we 

invented it,

monopolise it,

transformed it

into art. 

We queue,

best foot

forward, wearing

stiff upper lips,

displaying 

plumes of

peacock pride.

For centuries 

we have practised; 

in war time 

ration lines, 

supermarkets, 

airports, 

Wimbledon. 

It agitates 

our sense

of fairness;

we are ready

to be tested, 

to fight 

for our 

rightful

place. 

Now, 

we have

the mother

of all 

queues.

A record 

breaker,

meandering

for miles,

flowing 

like the

Thames through 

the heart 

of London.

A pulsing

tail of 

humanity,

from Britain 

and abroad

eager to 

embrace

a marathon

of waiting

and be a part 

of history.

No agitation

here, instead

a camaraderie

of shared

experience,

of sorrow.

At last,

there is

the end.

A pause,

in which

to bow 

our heads.

Pay respects.

Duty

bound, 

it seems,

to say

farewell. 

Annie Cowell  grew up in Northern England. She is a former teacher who lives by the sea in Cyprus with her husband and rescue dogs. She is widely published in Popshot Quarterly, The Milk House, Paddler Press, and more. Her debut chapbook Birth Mote(s) is now available.

LIZ’S FIRST DAY

by Annie Cowell

In an overcast Scottish sky, a plane circles

like a call on hold, carrying a lady in waiting.

Below, at Balmoral, the self proclaimed 

booster rocket splashes out. 

It is unlikely we will see photos 

of him ploughing. A chorus of low thunder 

fills the short interval before the Queen 

offers her hand for the fifteenth time. 

The kiss is symbolic.

Instead, a small handshake suffices

to greet the latest Prime Minster. 

She bears the same moniker, but 

unlike Elizabeth, she uses the diminutive.

Liz. 

She promises to deliver a better future,

to be like Hera, protector of children.

Yet I wonder if that night, as she closed the door

on the first day of her government

whether she held her breath and listened

for noises in the street?

Or did she simply kiss her children 

good night 

and toddle off to bed?

Annie Cowell is a former teacher who lives by the sea in Cyprus with her husband and rescue dogs. She is widely published in Popshot Quarterly, The Milk House, Paddler Press, and more. Her debut chapbook Birth Mote(s) is now available.

LIBRARIAN/HAPPY EASTER/X

by Annie Cowell

“Twenty-two years after a pair of notebooks filled with Charles Darwin’s early musings went missing from the Cambridge University Library, they were anonymously returned in good condition last month along with a note to the elated librarian: ‘Happy Easter.’” —The New York Times, April 5, 2022. Photo: One of the returned notebooks included Charles Darwin’s famous “tree of life” drawing, which maps out how related species could diverge from a common ancestor. Credit: Cambridge University Library via The New York Times

It wasn’t just the fatty bloom of ancient leather

(although my fingers itched to touch it),

but more the lignin laden bibliosmia

which wafts from the wrinkled patina.

Vanilla essence of Darwin.

What lay inside mattered less to me

than the shadow of the procreator,

of the man whose mind gave Life to the Tree.

An aura which goes beyond the scientific,

of ink-stained fingers lacing 

his beard with brown and grey before 

penning those spindly branches. 

Two decades, I have been their guardian.

Whilst they were presumed missing

mislaid, misfiled, misplaced,

I have inhaled Darwin; stared at the covers

through half-closed eyes,

felt his ghostly hands on mine. 

It is only when he whispers

the books are overdue,

that I know I must return them.

The librarian looks a jolly sort so 

I choose a pink gift bag

and leave them with a note,

happy to have played a part 

in the mystery

of the Origins of Life.

Author’s Note: This poem was inspired by the return of Darwin’s notebooks to Cambridge University. I wanted to imagine what had motivated both the taking and the returning of them.

Annie Cowell is a former teacher living in Cyprus. She has poems forthcoming in a number of publications. @AnnieCowell3

ALOPECIA

by Annie Cowell

My friend’s hair fell out.

Head, brows, lashes, body; every single hair.

One day she was lustrous, the next day naked. 

No explanation and no cure. Of course 

she will not die; there are 

far worse things to endure.

But for a while she could not face her world.

The daily chores, so simple and routine

became an endless round of hows and whys,

of sympathetic nods or stifled smiles.

And she felt lost, stripped bare;

her confidence destroyed.

And so she had her brows tattooed,

glued on false eyelashes,

bought wigs in different styles.

Found ways she could disguise the 

bald and brutal fact that

she would never feel, or look the same again.

Annie Cowell is a former teacher living in Cyprus. She has poems forthcoming in a number of publications. @AnnieCowell3

TRUE HOPE IS SWIFT AND FLIES WITH SWALLOW'S WINGS

by Annie Cowell 

Mural with swallows, Kyiv.

At dawn there is a chattering outside;

the swallows have returned—

A clattering percussion after winter’s silence

And I wonder as I watch them 

hurtling like arrows across the sky—

are there swallows shrieking over Kyiv?

Whilst missiles blast the light from Kyiv’s skies

will children spy the swallows darting past;

olive twigs hanging from their beaks?

Will those birds find their nests are broken

and sit instead on the prow of Charon’s boat

to guide the dead to the underworld?

Or rather, as sirens wail in breathless darkness

will the swallows glitter amongst the stars—

souls of the dead heralding the sun?

They say that true hope is swift 

and flies with swallow's wings

‘and light will win over darkness’

Annie Cowell is a former teacher living in Cyprus. She has poems forthcoming in a number of publications. @AnnieCowell3