Flatlands receding
B. Anne Adriaens
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Poplars pencilled grey-green onto uniform grey, this cloud cover pressing down was a wet intangible mass that pulled the horizon close, while pancakes at the tail-end of winter were not for us—only a metaphor for landscape flatness.
These layers of dirt turned fertile mud will go back to saltwater swamp in my lifetime, but that’s not why I ran. The roots are still there, creeping up the walls of family lore, tendrils feeling for my wrists and ankles—distance is a necessity. Lines in perpetual flight until the sea returns with a tide of silt and a new perspective: I will watch from over here as it washes away my childhood, for I escaped to a different language, where the taunts I remember don’t translate. |
B. Anne Adriaens is a Belgian immigrant based in Somerset. Her work has appeared in various publications, including Poetry Ireland Review, Ink Sweat and Tears, Skylight 47, Amsterdam Quarterly and Stand Magazine (forthcoming). Both her poetry and her fiction reflect her interest in alienation and dystopia.
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