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10.19.2026 8:02 AM

Poetry

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Anya Taylor-Joy by Damon Hubbs

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Anya Taylor-Joy
after Wallace Stevens

i
In a stable, in suburban Connecticut,
The only moving thing
Was the dove in the thoroughbred’s belly.

ii
I was fond of playing telephone
With noble accents,
The Sicilian Defense at the first sight of blackbirds.

iii
The sky, liverish from the window. The dishes as half made as the bed.
You played a small part. Just as my fingers rode over London.

iv
First, haunted houses.
Then the gorge
Where we spit
Off the edge of the world.

v
At the apothecary, when you dab vodka
On your wrist,
Your eyes are like a
Quintet for piano
And winds.

vi
Our dream vacation is Colonial America or Argentina
Or the pleasures of merely circulating Key West;
Me, like a virgin carrying a lantern.
You, in a peignoir by Dior Haute Couture.
I will be guilty of this, and that;
You will deliciously descend like chaos in motion
And not in motion.

vii
It’s possible I misunderstood the poem.
The image architect is vague and I’ve grown weary of romantics.
In a quiet,
Normal life, people don’t say Furioso!
Do they?

viii
You are not
A vapid white screen.
I am unapologetically
Autobiographical
In what I know.

ix
In the evening the fairy mirror broke. It was snowing with gothic unease
And the mirror was breaking. Somebody mistook the fairy
For a blackbird.

x
William Blake = animals.
Rilke = angels.
Kevin Killian = Kylie Minogue.
Much of life is mistaking rhythms.

xi
Ex-soldiers, embassy balls, aspiring singers, Bolshoi ballerinas:
In conversation with the alma mater, I have beaten the enemy
In short talks.

How the fire escape is wide eyed in the sun’s late fame
It can all be mistaken for a suede glove
Or men in off hours arguing about horsepower.

xii
The world is moving too much
and too little.

xiii
I die because
I cannot die:
Vampire Academy
Feeder Girl
2014.

About the artist

Damon Hubbs is a poet from New England. Recent publications include Apocalypse Confidential, Revolution John, The Literary Underground, The Bulb Region, Azarão Lit Journal, Estuary, and elsewhere. He is the author of the poetry collections Nighttime Logic and Venus at the Arms Fair. He is the editor of Ape House Magazine.