The Declaration
Maybe you wanted it
like a cup of strong tea
but you didn’t expect it so soon
or you thought it would come
as a shower of warm rain
announced on the 6:30 news.
Instead, you stumble into I love you
in the middle of an ordinary day
hot with poppies
sharp with the smell of mountain thyme—
no thermos, no map
just the clothes on your back
a long way from home.
Pamela Annas grew up in the Navy, lived for two years in a village in Turkey and graduated from high school in Yokohama, Japan. She is Professor Emerita of English at UMass/Boston where she taught working-class literature, modern and contemporary poetry and writing, coached UMB's ballroom dance team and directed its English MA Program. She is a member of the editorial collective and poetry editor at Radical Teacher, and has published books and articles on poetry, literature, and pedagogy, and poems in various journals and anthologies. Her chapbook Mud Season was published by Cervena Barva Press.