A Pair of Poems by Anina Robb

by Anina Robb

Virginia to New York, Again

If I can imagine home, is it endless?

I still think of my room as mine
and remember sleeping deeper there.

I still think of my parents as mine.
Even though by the time I’ve reached
the Mason Dixon Line I can’t recall their faces.

Trying to decide where my heart is –
I’m empty with miles marked
but never stopped, where is the proof of passing?

Maybe in my hands, faint
with the smell of leather.
But even that’s temporary, vanishing
like the stone wall around the back yard,
my parents waving:

we used to be three like a wish.

Roots

The roots of the sugar maple
in the back yard
rise out of the earth like
a swimmer’s arms break the
water’s surface.

My father says the roots have
outgrown their under-ground home.

I wonder where I will go
when I grow up?

Anina Robb is a poet living in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia with her husband and two children. She earned her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and has published poems in Nebo, White Pelican Review, Rilvendel and Oatmeal and Poetry. This year, her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Emerge, Main Street Rag and Ascent Aspirations.