When Annie Met Abel, by Donna Carnes

Telconia, by John Everett (England) c. 1920s-1930s

​When Annie Met Abel
 
He was big-boned and raw, dripping of sex, 
with a huge, homely nose perched below
 
hard North Sea eyes. Her cousin said
when he walked into a room every woman’s head
 
turned - even the married ones,
and he never passed up an opportunity.
 
She was fine-boned and fast, like a young Merlin falcon, 
inquisitive but untried, the haughty, almond-eyed
 
darling and first college grad in a family of Croatian
goat herders, who practiced vendetta while reciting The Lord’s Prayer.
 
He sailed from Holland in steerage, wearing the moral compass
of his erudite old man, a Calvinist preacher who methodically practiced
 
the Seven Deadly Sins.* They met in San Francisco and secretly
married just before the war. Her father said he’d only bring grief.
 
Which helps me understand her last Thanksgiving 
eighty years later on Telegraph Hill.
 
The Bay below was hazy and still. Our redwood
basked in fading sun, which bathed the old Crown-glass
 
windows in muted, wavering light. The scent of roasting turkey, 
rosemary and orange, circled our table of laughing souls,
 
including Annie’s son, his current and former wives,
the laid-back granddaughter, and a new baby boy.
 
Someone who didn’t know better, casually 
mentioned while passing her the Parker House rolls:
 
did you know he died last summer,
somewhere up the coast?
 
The earth stopped spinning for a brief
moment as her high-pitched Cassandra shriek*
 
shattered a black hole of silence,
sundered the bottle of Sandman Ruby Port,
 
bounced off the startled redwood tree, 
then echoed through the rain-soft city
 
like a dark wailing wind …
may he rot in hell forever, God damn his evil soul.
 
She turned wounded, naked eyes to me;
I blew her a kiss, nodded at my husband
 
her son, then passed her the pumpkin pie.
She smiled when I topped off her burgundy wine.
 
But nothing is ever that easy. Months later 
as she lay on her deathbed,
 
safe inside a mellow, Morpheus dream, 
she held my hand, pulled me close,
 
then murmured in my ear:
I’m not really the first wife.
 
He was the husband of my best friend Katija,
who I lost forever because of my sin.
 
I was the second of seven wives. He was a spider’s
thread sailing on the wind: - it was never real.
 
Donna Carnes

**
​
Editor's notes:

This poem was inspired by Steamer Dock, 1920s, by John Tayson (USA) before 2020.
https://patch.com/connecticut/groton/mystic-seaport-marine-art-exhibit-opening-soon-0

Author's notes:

*The Seven Deadly Sins: In AD 590 Pope Gregory I revised the list of Seven Deadly sins (Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy,and Pride), which is still used today in Catholicism and Protestantism, including Anglican, Lutheran, and Methodist denominations.
 
Cassandra: In Greek mythology, Cassandra was a prophetess and princess of Troy, cursed by Apollo to always prophesize the truthbut never be believed. She often predicted impending doom, such as the fall of Troy.

​Donna Carnes is an imagist, en plein air poet. She writes in diverse poetic forms, including freestyle, villanelle, pantoum, sonnet, haiku and haibun. Her poetry is shaped by the geography and culture of her childhood and adult life. Carnes was born in Chicago, Ill., spent her toddler years in the Pacific Northwest, and grew up in Madison, Wisconsin. She studied and worked in England for several years, and lived for decades in San Francisco, CA. She particularly enjoys plein air writing in winter light and during the end-of-day blue hour. Over the past 18 years, Carnes’ poems have been in numerous exhibits with artists, in articles, and in radio interviews and poetry readings. Her most recent book is All About the Light, Poems & Paintings (Donna Carnes poet and Jan Norsetter painter; Two Goddesses Press, November, 2024).