on accident (for Adrienne Rich)

I want to borrow gods
(as Adrienne does,
though she knew better)
their sad logic
their templates
but there’s always a tell, no?
a too close accuracy
not confidently misremembered
studied

would you be disappointed
out of habit
like a god
in quiet wrath

to know better,
but to choose otherwise
and I’m arrested and confused
by the smell of roasting potatoes,
such a fundamental warmth,
damning though
as Persephone 😉

I think that, perhaps I already wrote it
by accident
on accident he says, Americanised, young
not mine
when I wrote something about the ground
about splitting

but you would be disappointed
out of habit
in your quiet wrath

seriously though,
why do I think, in envy, of the shallow underworld
dug up in pots in the garden
by the foxes
soft earth falling away at their snouts
mounds and pointed hollows left
some brightness extracted

Anna Brook (they/she) is a writer, poet, lecturer and mother. They explore difficult-to-articulate experiences, such as the strangeness of early motherhood, grief and trauma. Anna’s full-length poetic-prose work, Motherhood: A Ghost Story, is out with Broken Sleep Books in September 2025.