The Best Among Them, by Laura Ann Reed

Symbiosis I, by Jacob Berghoef (Denmark) 2022.

​The Best Among Them
 
It’s hard not to see poets as builders
of parallel worlds: a village 
cobbled together with wind, a forest
of fish. They know that you know
they’re playing around with somebody else’s 
life.  That the stakes are high.  
They’ll move mountains 
to convince you of the authenticity 
of their tricks. 
They have this idea they stand 
at the edge of the universe.  
Their dreams are eyes. 
The best among them own hats
holding rabbits with long, velvet ears
you can’t resist stroking.

Laura Ann Reed

Laura Ann Reed, a San Francisco Bay Area native, taught modern dance and ballet at the University of California, Berkeley before working as a leadership development trainer at the San Francisco headquarters of the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the United States, Canada and Britain. She is the author of the chapbook, Shadows Thrown, (Sungold Editions, 2023). Laura and her husband live in the Pacific Northwest.