Anna Evans

Hans Holbein & the
Unverifiable Miniature

She has a look of the unlucky Anne:
the same gloss to her hair, the same dark eyes,
half knowing and half terrified; Anne’s chin,
more of a tilt perhaps. I’ve heard the lies

the courtiers whisper. She is far too young.
Hold still your Majesty, so that my art
is perfect for your Lord. They say the King
is quite besotted. Ach, the foolish heart.

I loved Anne’s profile, how her playful nose
sloped from her creamy brow, a witch indeed.
And now the King has plucked another rose,
another beauty from the same weak seed.

Bitte, the cuffs, your Majesty, they hide
your graceful hands. She hardly smiles. Her lips
fuller than Jane’s. Not my role to decide
whether it’s grace or childbearing hips

makes the best trait to recommend a Queen,
and Jane gave him the Prince. So pale the day
she sat here in those very jewels—I’ve seen
no one alive before with skin so gray,

not even German Anne whose smallpox scars
could have placed my own head on the block.
She begged me fade them. Now she lives her years
out where the King ruled. Majesty, a lock

of hair is loose. Bitte, tuck it inside
the headdress. Ach, her hand is trembling badly.
She wants and fears her wants. For this young bride
his jewels are not enough. This will end sadly.

My portraits of her cousin were all burned
the day the axe split off her little neck—
all that beauty, gone. These days I’ve learned:
when painting Henry’s Queens I stack the deck.

The oil is done. My thanks for your good patience,
and tell his Majesty it shall be dry
tomorrow. Farewell. Now the imitation
in miniature, which I shall keep close by.

Ach, thornless rose, you stand out like a flower
soon to be snipped, and don’t suspect a thing.
My Dear, you are predestined for the Tower.
I paint his portrait too: I know the King.

At Eastampton Crossroads

It’s not rush hour, yet traffic’s strangely slow—
usually I’d be cruising on this route.
Today there are two cars with air bags blown
and crumpling up like baby parachutes.
A faint relief moves me that lives were saved
then ten yards on I see the Buick, sheared
in half beneath a truck, the certain grave
of someone much like me. Past that, it’s clear.
There’s no use dwelling on it. Death comes scything
and DNA caves in like unbraced metal.
Past churchyards, noisy playgrounds, I keep driving,
arrive just as a meeting’s getting settled,
and steal in, mouthing Sorry! In my head
bewildered voices churn—the newly dead.

Criss Cross

Don’t venture down Love Boulevard;
kisses are coins cast in fool’s gold.
A heart is not a credit card.
Kisses are coins. Cast in fool’s gold,
prices are low, the barter hard.
Those who listen to the old
don’t venture down Love Boulevard —
Kisses are coins fools cast in gold.