Alarm

by Ana Johnson

Look down
at my would be
wedding ring… does it go
on the right hand or the left? Sore
fingers.

Maiden’s
hands, cut off. Can’t do anything
except please mother
otherwise she’d
rather

murder
herself; heard it
already few times
today. She’d rather die than grow
wrinkly

slapping
her cheeks in the front passenger
seat, opening chasms
of fear on her
aged face.

Ana Johnson, PhD, is Professor in Public Health Sciences, Queen’s University, who always has enjoyed writing through her academic career and has been expanding her writing onto the creative realm. She received mentorship through the City of Kingston Poet Laureate Program under Sadiqa de Meyer last year, in 2025. Her creative work has been published in Queen’s Quarterly, Fib Review, Devour: Art & Lit Canada, and monthly in the Kingston’s Neighbours East and Southwest magazine. She holds weekly writing workshops in the Kingston, Ontario, Canada area, and has just launched a six-week online workshop. Lately, she has been experimenting with “double” mirror cinquain poems (example submission above: “Alarm”). She is on Instagram @anajohnsonauthor and her web site is anajohnsonauthor.com.