Self Portrait as the Last Kumquat // Annie Diamond
We cool our feet in the oldest pool in Santa Ana,
built 1929. I am 29, inelegant save for swimming.
Remembering how to breathe among wisteria
and lilies, Easter. Is the Eiffel Tower the most
famous thing in the world? Took a boat
on the Douro under Gustave Eiffel Bridge,
eat the last kumquat off its tree, share one pitcher
of gin cocktail. California a conundrum. Sunlight
psalmic, smells of ocean. For so long I wanted
to be beautiful, and then I found I was. Novato
we ate Peruvian food and drank pisco cocktails,
hiked Cathedral Grove, Muir Woods: devotional.
For dappled things. Lemon trees so casual.
Once I thought I knew the size and shape of
this heart; I was 17, arrogant. Muscular
where I have not been before. Last week
a stranger in an elevator told me
I was radiating happiness, I think
the best compliment I have ever received. Once I
misread sunbathe as unbathe, preferred the mistake.
Annie Diamond is an Ashkenazi Jewish poet and recovering academic who has made her home in Chicago. She has been awarded fellowships by MacDowell, Luminarts Cultural Foundation, The Lighthouse Works, and Boston University, where she earned her MFA in 2018. Her poems appear and are forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, No Tokens Journal, Western Humanities Review, and elsewhere. She is currently trying to place her first poetry manuscript.