print previewback ROGER REEVES
In a Brief, Animated World: The Marriage of Anne of Denmark
to James of Scotland, 1589
Nature always begins with resistance—
The small congregation of ants refusing
To allow the femur bone of the fox
To rest, meatless, the heavy head of flies
In January straying from the graves
Which are the corners of this house—
The four Negroes at Queen Anne’s wedding
Dancing in the snow, naked, before her
Carriage, the creak of carriage wheels
Counting out steps—1-2-3-Turn-Jump-
Turn—their arms wide as goose wings,
Bow, then a breaking at the waist,
Mucus spills from their mouths onto—
And before a guest from Oslo can point
To the blood-tinged saliva, the wagon wheels
Gather every stitch of spit, grind,
Then smear—the body, if allowed,
Will dance even as it is ruined—a mule
Collapsing in a furrow it’s just hewed—
The sway and undulation of the famished—
There are no straight lines but unto death—
Four men turning circles in the snow—
The arch of their toes calling Anne to lean
Forward, admire the work of the unshod
Sinking below all this white. She thinks:
In a brief, animated world, this would not be
Agony. The leg of her fox stole slips
From her shoulders and points to the men
Shivering in their last plié. Yes, she thinks,
But agony is sometimes necessary. 
“In a Brief, Animated World: The Marriage of Anne of Denmark to James of Scotland, 1589” from King Me, 2013 by Roger Reeves, used by permission of Copper Canyon Press.
Cross Country
In a Brief, Animated World: The Marriage of Anne of Denmark to James of Scotland, 1589
Romanticism (the Blue Keats)
Self-Portrait as Ernestine “Tiny” Davis
