The static of an April around the corner,

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God bless the God who sent
these small bent fingers to me
who taught me to hold my breath through pain
and sent me where I would learn to sacrifice
so it became second nature
for me to catch spit up bell peppers
and take swipes to the face.

I walk three times around the kitchen island
in observance of the holiness of the thuds
small bare feet spread across the tiles
like a tidal wave devouring houses
like box of Legos spilled into a living room.

Lift my hands to the blue sky on blue sky days
that watch him pick a yellow dandelion
and try to blow the leaves away.
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In León

Warmed up on shandies over underwhelming tapas
we squeezed our way through bodied crowds
de barrio humedo al barrio romantico,
just to see.

Suddenly the buildings were slick sided
the guests in short dressed and collars
no room for wandering bachelor parties and cheers,
but promptly, a deli counter, with tubs of.unidentifiable sides
that awaited our decision.

He was then behind us, and suggested the pig ear,
and we were so eager to go local we nodded along.
He pulled us to the bar and our dusk cracked wide open --
we were in the presence of the Santiago we were walking to,
and wouldn't you know it? He was going by bike.

Pedro > piedra > Peter

The counters were coated with mist from the ghost of his brother
as childhood houses with bird houses on sticks
spilled forth from his mouth and into our glasses of white.
Small glasses, the smallest we could manage,
and still when we finally pulled ourselves away
in pilgrim clothing that showed us completely other,
I swear the painting of a famed bullfighter on the wall
was him.
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I held a bocadillo in the steaming streets of Pamplona
and was sure I would have many more,

The clouds broke into blue sky just as we packed up
to continue along Dinosaur Ridge, but we simply continued,
and we were sure the rest of the day would be blue,

We spoke of growing up together,
planning picnics with unknown future spouses and children,
and I was sure they would be beside us for every milestone,

I missed a few calls from my dad,
and I was sure he would always call back,

until the next never came.
Until the fall into a bottomless pit.
No more salami, the clouds rolled in,
we drifted on pulling tides, and death tapped my shoulder lightly.
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Outside Drogueria Emilio Lopez

It is the early autumn still spiked with summer,
sunglasses and polished wood shining back the noonlight,
and I am tied to the laundry shredding itself against metal teeth
in the laundromat across the street.

An old man and an old woman stop and face one another
in front of the corner sign calling out Emilio Lopez,
and the old man pulls out a tissue from somewhere close to his chest.

It is strange how I hear the voice of my grandfather
though I have forgotten it decades ago,
as the old man opens his mouth and promises
of course they will go fishing next Spring,
of course his body will carry him there.

The old woman looks away for a moment
and sees her own face in the drogueria window,
darkened by wood shelves inside,
and she points the grandfather clock
that once chimed in the front room of the childhood home
of my mother and of me. There is no more time.
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Too distracted, needs a second careful look

Spoiler
I remember the way my heart lifted
the first time you drank from a straw --
how silly, you will say, so easy anyone could do it,
why would you pretend to be proud of me for that?

I know, I know it means nothing now,
but there were so many days we shared together
where it was something you could not do
or had not tried.
To see you in a new light for the first time
is something like a babbling brook,
droning on and on over the same story
of the first time you used the word "yesterday",
or the first time you called me in my mother tongue
instead of the one they always pushed against us
like people packed too tight in a subway.

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When I call out for you in my final hours,
it will be for the you who sat beside us on the bench
of the light green piano shedding its paint,
who watched cousins play pop songs
and watched me plink plink just from joy
of belonging in a bustling Easter morning
right before the ham was set on the table
and we were called in to eat like beloved pigs in the dusk.

It will be for the you who sat inside the screen door of the cabin
while I traced letters in the gravel just in front of
where grandma and grandpa sat in their assigned seats
on the hard earned wooden bench on the hard earned wooden porch
as the sunnies flitted from under the dock to the weeds and back
just before the porch light turned on to throw the lake into black
and we would tumble into the camper van to ruffle magazine pages
and press stiff buttons on cassette players
until the mosquitoes went to sleep
or until Dad came to carry us back into the bunk beds
next to the dressers filled with squirrel nests in place of clothes.

This family and this lore, yes, I thank you,
but I have no images of your hands holding mine
and only remember begging you over and over
to read a chapter from the Hobbit,
because we were right in the middle of it, Dad and I,
and I just wanted to know what would happen next.
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When will be
the last time
I kiss the pads of your feet?

Words only ever to be heard from your lips
have already faded into memory
and desperate lines in a notebook
begging myself not to forget too soon.

When will be the last time
we are blessed to look upon each other?

Will I be going too soon or will you?
Or will it be like your first unremembered cat --
it was about time, and at least we held on for spring blooms.
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Literally just a journal entry

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Woke up smiling,
eleven hours of sleep in your pocket,
enticed into jumps by the promise of animal friends visiting daycare.
Watched through the doorway as you walked up the slope
and then back down to let a friend climb up first.
Heard you pulled your own tissue out of the drawer
and knelt beside teacher to clean up.
Sat beside you as a friend set the table before you
with plates and cups and model bananas
and told you to have some of the toy crackers,
and you asked for water when your cheeks flushed red.
We didn't go straight home but got the dinner you requested by name --
a new skill, a new opinion, and you were wonderful in your chair.
Followed you as you darted around the mall hallways,
ending up by the small shelves of animal figures
next to the older girl who ate seaweed soup in front of us,
and I was tickled to see your eyes go wide
when she started singing the same song you were.
A happy ride back home, after you thanked the stuffed animals
in the back seat for waiting for you to come back,
and a warm bath with Daddy,
before you fell asleep, first time In a long, long time,
cradled in my arms like a smaller baby
as I whispered shh shh shh in sets of three
and we watched the light on the air purifier
change from white to blue to green to blue to green to blue to white.
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Dear Hannah ~
Some of these latest poems are so full of love they just feel like a warm hug; these little moments that truly mean so much and especially so when understood through poetry.

God bless the God who sent
these small bent fingers to me
who taught me to hold my breath through pain
and sent me where I would learn to sacrifice
so it became second nature


Oh these lines <3333 desperately sweet with love and devotion.

--

"I wish you said happy birthday" - resonates in the opposite way when someone does not take the time to notice the "little" things, or follow-up, or check in - these little forgetful things can be devastating in their un-noticing (reminds me of the feeling of when someone you love spells your name wrong... it's just a few letters, but also it's a name it's crushing!) and then contrasted with the innocence of childhood that sometimes just sees grace / love instead of lack. That "yet" on a line all by itself is rightfully heavy. <3

--

The poetic contradiction of looking through the lens of memory, standing in front of clock and saying "There is no more time." is also a striking image.

--

Really loved your poem that begins "When I call out for you in my final hours, /it will be for the you who sat beside us on the bench" ...

and how it ends in begging for "more" of the story to know what's next - feels both yearning / hopeful together especially in a poem looking ahead to "final" moments. I see in this poem how poetry and memory are gifts in how they allow us to the precious moments beyond those in the present (and there is a maybe a bitter "falseness" to that - the past is not present, but sometimes that's what we need, want, or have to hold on to nonetheless). That poem makes me very reflective on what are the "essential" memories I hold for different people, which ones I would want to hold, and which ones they'd hold for me etc.

Your poetry is all so very thoughtful Hannah - it is beautiful and compelling in its word choice and imagery, but also invites so much more reflection beyond the individual words because of that thoughtfulness underneath. Thank you!

you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return




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Laughter like condensation on summer lemon tea,
sticking anywhere it lands then sliding down joyfully
to sleep in a pool of arms and legs on the table on the porch..

Moths crown street lights from where I lay
head hanging over the cul-de-sac curb,
legs levitated on deep August grass.

I lick the tip of the pen
before I press it to your photograph.
I write the date we met, the date we kissed,
your middle name, and then your farewell speech,
onesided as the moon.

Someday I swear to count the stoplights
and the sounds from mufflers loud and bright,
but for now I count the crickets in the ticks of the clock downstairs
and remind myself it is too hot for anything
but an ice bath on the side table.
The photograph is gone on the rising night air.
The laughter is gone, too.
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And he steps bravely into a room
where I don't belong and am not welcome.
There are warm-sun voices calling for him,
arms slipped over his shoulders,
hands that hold his and dance him in rings,
and I sit just outside the threshold
watching and holding this moment
as if it is what keeps me from falling forward.

I am lucky to be his first love,
but I will not be his last,

and in the darkness behind me something rustles.
Intermittent taps on the armrest of a recliner,
and a pill bottle popping open and a spoon stirring in creamer,
and it all sounds familiar until suddenly
I am aware of the threshold I once crossed,
where my dad sits just beyond,
watching to see whose arms drape over my neck
and who holds my hands now that I have gone into the room
where he does not belong.

The breath catches in the doorway
this way
and that.

I peel oranges slowly and remember
how good it had been to have them peeled for me
how good it has been to set them on another's plate
how good the juice is and how good the seeds.
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Four Kilometers an Hour

A train of stars crept in silence across the sky
where below we were in the cornfield looking up.

Can you take a picture of me with that cloud?
Absolutely a cloud worth taking a picture with.

Maybe because when the info placards read
so-and-so had this bridge constructed for pilgrims,
it reads as "someone built this bridge for YOU".

Stealing blackberries from bushes and
figs from trees as we pass blister bandaids to one another
and always leave money for beer and wine.

How many sunsets have you seen in a row?
We have all taken pictures of the same flaming cotton candy
and the moon bright in the sky as her equal rose behind.

Each town proclaimed by an entrance sign,
each exit marked with lines across,
but we are more often liminal in forests and fields
with the black cats and forgotten porcelain pitchers.

One of the cathedrals was my favorite,
whichever one had the most stained glass
to catch the late summer sun.

And this is what love is:
there was a line out the door as we waited
for the small nun to take our hands
and speak directly into our eyes,
and we each walked away with the same plastic Mother Mary pendant,
but we would all proclaim later
how she had come into our soul and moved it,
even though it was the same for every one of us.

Take the grapes you need,
we will wash your feet
and eat by candlelight.
We will sing on benches under the open sky
guitar until the hush settles into the grass
like a navy-coat cat,
and then we will hold you on bunks until morning.

The goose followed me into the bar
and glared until I got up and went back out again.
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The static of an April around the corner
was like pinstripes across bargain classic books.
My ribbon moved through Stoker in very early summernoons
and daydreams were laced with delusions of predetermined love
waiting for me to step into the streetlight on the right rundown road.
Breath came short and eyelashes fluttered.

Days were full of lush kudzu swaying in mild breezes,
and we thought forward to the next cold sandwich on translucent blue china
or whether to check movie times in the newspaper,
and a month could be spent wading through mud slowly warming to touch.

There is a texture to the creaking caved silence of an empty dark house
still chill while the sun races across branches to kiss each new bud,
but I think I only remember it as the canvas
behind paintings of the ceiling of my place in the backroom
when there was nothing better to do than
read across each title on the bookshelf
and remember the night and plan for the day.
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There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights.
— Bram Stoker