Ken Anderson
Your visit stirs them up,
the bony Rottweilers licking the blood
on the stone floor
of the heart.
Through the valves
of the heart, they shy, tails tucked,
into the darkest corner.
The thought
of you, like a spider, lights
on the bed, boding your virulent sting.
A fang
on a leather strap, a frown
I offer you. No more.
Though the sun dissolves
the frosted pane, I wear a crown
of venomous thorns. The King
of Solitude. One.
In this bitter heart
that bears your name, my solemn curse
is as close
to love
as ghost mist
or a startled growl.
***
Ken Anderson’s résumé includes The Intense Lover: A Suite of Poems; Someone Bought the House on the Island (a novel, finalist in the Independent Publishers Award); Hasty Hearts (a reprint of Someone plus ten short stories); The Statue of Pan (fiction), Sea Change: An Example of the Pleasure Principle (finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award); Mattie Cushman: A Psychodrama (winner of the Louisiana College Writers First Place in Drama and Grand Prize); and Someone Bought the House on the Island: A Dream in Two Acts (winner of the Saints and Sinners Playwriting Contest).