3 Poems by Anj Baker
I bet it does
With my right ear flat to my mattress
I can hear the secret sounds of the universe
In my left ear
The train and the traffic and the pipes
But with my right ear
Turned away from what is now
With my right ear
Listening for the world
It sounds like mine own pulse
Like a conch full of the ocean
We are in the conch and we are in the world
And every day it is bright and shiny and new
A new conch every day.
You said you cry to think of space
But I bet space cries to think of us too.
Meanwhile the train the traffic the pipes
A prologue; nothing
(originally published in Bleating Thing)
[@2am laying out my flaws on a space in my mind, some space like the roadside motel duvet on
the roadside motel bed.
[The rock bottom. (?)
[A last push for independence. (?)
[Independence before (?) choosing (?). (?)
[My suitcase (?) has no bottom, not anymore. I keep pulling out flaws and laying them down.
[I set them all prim and proper, like a flatlay.
[They nestle within the gyri and sulci of my cerebral cortex; they settle amidst the wrinkles of
the duvet.
[They are at home but I am not.
[Not yet. (?) One day. (!)]
Shonen Knife in the parking lot
He’s at the bus stop watching YouTube shorts on his Google Pixel with wired earbuds
She’s biking over patched black ice on the side of the road
Grocery bags on her handlebars
Almond milk and two percent
They’re double-bagged
The geese are wintering in the parking lot
And you’re in your car listening to Shonen Knife
A swarm of crows like an alien spaceship above your windshield
The bus is late and it’s five Fahrenheit and isn’t it too cold for the geese
Who honk amongst the buses which are all the wrong buses for you and you specifically
You’re tired of the commute of car and bus and walk and walk and bus and car
But you do it anyway because there’s nothing better to do
You were in line at the grocery store and you all were talking about the price of eggs
It was early evening and already dark outside with heavy snow clouds
The polar vortex preparing its second onslaught
You felt so human there at the end of the world
Your brown carton of twelve eggs cradled in your arms
Ready to pay seven dollars USD for the privilege of six grams of protein apiece
You buy almond milk too and a new set of wired earbuds because yours broke the other day
Today again the bus is late and you listen to Shonen Knife in the parking lot
Anj Baker was raised in rural Appalachia but now lives in suburban Illinois, where they work as a neuroscience research technician. A 2024 graduate of the Clarion workshop, they write mostly speculative fiction.