Jan Owen Biography

for Mona Lisa in the fifth lane

Lips straight from the Quattrocento, at each end
a secret curlicue on a face as poised and round
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Alias Lunaria: silver dollar or silver shilling,
it travels well: hold it up to the light and see

frugal savings for a rainy day.
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‘Twenty-nine years ago. And only yesterday, '
says Balázs, slapping at a fly.
We sit beside a bottle underneath his vines
and watch the football arc between our sons.
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An earlier pitch of light
had turned all edges halo―tree, rock, child―
contained the change a moment
then withdrawn.
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Although we loved the gentle horse whose nose
of worn-out velvet nudged us for rye-grass,
Antarctica come to the suburbs was what drew
us through the heat; we trotted by its slow
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