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| by Hannah Fishburn |
There are times when I have to be ruthless:
Everything contaminated goes in the burn pile
and so does everything else just in case.
I have something like a narrative
that I prune,
and prune and prune
until I give up the ghost.
Then I don’t have it anymore.
But I don’t know where it went:
Not in the dustpan with the trimmings
from the rosebush.
I search with the morbid fascination
of an appendectomy patient
emerging from the operating theater
holding a dubious little jar.
You would call me gross
for asking to keep the organ
but I think it’s sad
I have to ask,
that I could be denied
flesh that was part of me
until someone went at it with scissors.
I feel around the empty hole where it was
and cut my tongue on new tooth’s edge.
The thing that comes next is sneaky
and terrible, it’s half here already
but we won’t get a good look until we’ve fled
and can see it from a distance.
Something little like roadkill
blooms into a dust storm
behind all the running people.
I could have saved a lot of trouble
in Biblical Babel
by reminding them of the other common tongue.
The feeling you get when you’re in your parents’ neighborhood
And see an ambulance with the lights on.
The water rising and your kids can’t swim.
You can’t swim.
It’s how you got into your own head
the last time you went to church and never went back.
Were you thinking about
the thing you can’t take back
you said to someone special?
But that isn’t what I wanted to say.
It’s getting dark again and my grim mood
is ruining the good day, at the ocean.
You say
most people don’t find that sort of thing
very agreeable.
Agreeable.
I pick sand out of my shorts. It’s in my teeth.
Agreeable.
My mouth is gritty.
Well I never agreed to any of it,
that was the point
I failed to make.
But now you’re skipping rocks and the fireworks have begun.
Look at you.
The kind of person
who claps during the finale.
I’m sorry the fear didn’t grow me
and that I’m shrinking still.
It’s a goddamn graveyard in here.
MEET THE POET:
Hannah is a young writer and artist in Maine. She writes poetry and short stories with unusual perspectives exploring themes of human nature, tragedy, and change. She draws inspiration in her writing and art from the mundanity of everyday life and relationships, woven into the fabric of the larger challenges posed in a modern world. She hopes to continue pursuing her interest in the experimental craft of short fiction. When she isn't chewing on the keyboard, she's eating oil paint.
