This Desert (Day 512)

We have seen this

desert where 

you would send

the innocent.

We have seen this

desert where

their lives will grow

hard and barren.

We have seen this

desert where 

you will nurture

their nightmares.

It is empty.

Nearly as empty

as your hearts. 

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Pixabay

Books Suit Me (Day 438)

books suit me like navy blue

I am told   choosing is simple 

akin to buying this small house

remember when you looked 

inside all those hollow sugar 

Easter eggs   too small or large

too hot or too cold  too close or

too far away   you were afraid 

no one would come to admire 

your lush garden on Sundays 

or read my favorite novel    after 

I’m gone you’ll find it falls open 

to the passage that inspires and

comforts me   like those photos 

of the old you   the fragrance of

libraries   this small hollow house

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Liz West/Flickr

In the Second Place (Day 431)

...in the first place, she said 

to the window, the violet desert 

night, her flushed face mirrored 

back in a reflection, where their 

eyes met. And, in the second, 

you don’t even know who I am. 

A swell of annoyance, or maybe 

it was boredom, lifted her off 

her feet for a few seconds, and 

suddenly, she could see herself 

from outside, from out there where 

stormclouds of stars piled up on 

the horizon, where a hot wind 

sipped sweat from your skin so 

quickly you never felt a prickle, 

where that silvery road unwound 

like a mystery, northward, over 

a series of rocky hills.

Outside, where the scrub brush 

met the drive, two glowing green 

eyes appeared like magic. They 

seemed to be looking directly at 

her, shimmering in rising waves of 

ambient heat. She gazed back, 

momentarily unaware of the man 

waiting for her to further explain 

herself. The green eyes blinked 

once, twice—then vanished as 

she stepped out into the evening

closing the door firmly behind her.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: fancycrave1/Pixabay

Cafés & Libraries (Day 418)

Often, I dream of sidewalk cafés 

and cavernous libraries, where

old men gather to read the papers

and doze. I weigh my options 
in the palm of my hand: Peach, 

pear, or apricot? Will the fruit’s 

fragrant meat resist the pressure 

of my teeth, or will it succumb 

easily, carelessly divulging juicy 
secrets? Somewhere, someone’s 
chair scrapes the stone-cold floor. 

A spine cracks. I stretch. My spine 
cracks. A woman walks by quickly,
remarkably poised, seemingly 
unaware of her squeaky left sandal. 

Collecting my things, I ready myself 

to rejoin the sundrunk joy of April 

outside this cool, dim, ink-and-paper 

world. Fast asleep, silver-whiskers 

and unruly eyebrows twitching, 

the man to my right dozes, snuffles 

now and then, and, squinting into 

the hazy midday glare, I find myself 

wondering if he, too, dreams about

sidewalk cafés and cavernous libraries, 

where girls with leather satchels 

and ripe pears pass through wooden 
doors into the spring-white light.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org Dr. Gustav Stresemann, German Foreign Minister, sitting at the terrace of a cafe, reading the newspapers Photograph 1930 Published: ca. 1930.

Final Fitting (Day 409)

During the final fitting 

she let the gown slip 

to the floor, revealing 

somewhat more than 

the freckles on her 

broad swimmer’s back.

So typically bold of her, 

whispered the women 

behind the door—

seldom practical and 

not very controlled, 

always seems to be 

missing an essential 

part of the general idea.

Later, she told me she 

agreed, until I reminded 

her of the-dinner-party-

of-the-bare-shoulders,

where that late-summer 

evening cast a watery 

glow, the perfect backdrop 

for her peridot-green silk, 

the exact shade of greed, 

mossy and golden as 

drafty castle ruins on 

a rumpled Irish cliff.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

A hint of sweetness (Day 404)

Winter is sleeping 

off an angry outburst 
now  its freshness faded  

and spring’s impending 

buds  sensing the end 

of long cold nights are 

forcing fall’s final leaves 

from their branches  

sending them flying 

toward the estuary  

striped gray and brown 

by three weeks of rain  

flooded with runoff 

from the foothills 

that glow like autumn 

in late afternoon 

when the fog breaks and

sunlight strokes last year’s 

storm-flattened grasses   

nomadic summer migrates 

northward now  fluttering  

open-ended  shallow  

but still in a deep sort of way 

and  straining toward it 

with open-mouthed desire 

we  confined to our nests  

yearn to grasp the slightest

wafer of warmth  a hint 

of sweetness in the air  

dreaming of bees humming 

over a bank of tiger lilies 

and heavy-headed peonies 

kissing the chalky gravel walk

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: John Singer Sargent, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (ca.1885), 
oil on canvas, photo courtesy Tate London/Wikimedia Commons

Formal reception (Day 402)

Perfect white petals.

Slight eagerness stills cupped wings.

Formal reception.

Sternly, pines balk, branches bowed.

Eloquent wind speaks her mind.

Sighing, spring retreats.

Ice reclaims still pools and ponds.

Fickle winter smiles.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: pihajutkanen/Pixabay

Moonscape (Day 401)

The artist's fingers seek and find  squelched

deep inside his rumpled linen coat 

the lawyer’s letter (signature required)  

growing damp and crumpled  there

he stands and draws his few visitors toward 

the glass   chilled by cold drafts tugged helplessly

into thin indentations   where beyond 

crackled windows   a golden moonscape glows  

a leaf grows here   a twig dries there  lizards 

lounge companionably   trying to warm their skin

in watery sunlight  requiring nothing more than 

an opportunity to taste the apple-scented air

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Sahara Desert (wislamos/Pixabay)

Those Unfrightened of the Dark (Day 394)

Blue buffeting those old wet bricks,

cars rumble over cobblestones 

too slippery for walking 

when the chestnuts shed their leaves. 

Night falls, burdens lighten for some, 

the daytime world is squirreled away, 

protected until sunrise. 

Those unfrightened of the dark may

wander, read, dance, play, fight, drink, 

and hope their eyes adjust, or risk 

the quicksand of nostalgia.

If the song’s not right, the perfume 

floating on a summer breath—jasmine, 

sweat, a baby-soft trainwreck of scent

—might lure the unfortunate into their 

own sweet mysteries, tangled as kudzu 

in the trees that line the roads back home.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Skeeze/Pixabay

Black Coffee in Handpainted Mug (Day 393)

too bitter 

to ignore 

the purr it 

releases  finding 

purchase on 

the porcelain 

glaze  cobalt 

perfection  

devoid of 

the grit and 

fingerprints 

one might expect 

on an everyday

object made 

of clay intricately 

painted by a 

tired-eyed woman 

in a dusty 

crowded room

so far away 

I cannot begin 

to imagine 

the language

she speaks

in her dreams.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

The Painter (Day 392)

summer’s verdant, musky vines 

painter consumed by her canvas

wildflower ghosts of spring

in a frigid, well-lit space

mushroom-colored, winter day

brushes slay dragons of gloom

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Helen Galloway McNicoll, The Apple Gatherer (c. 1900), oil on canvas

Her White Whale (Day 389)

shaking her head at the modern world’s distaste 

for promises, she vowed instead to pursue her 

White Whale deep into the indigo mystery

to that end, eyes wide open, she dove headlong

into an icy pool of stars, and broke the surface 

again in a shimmering burst of breath and water

later, sinking into the multi-layered depths of midnight,

she found herself wondering if she wanted to 

awaken from the liquid solitude of dreamless sleep

but a ghostly fluke, like mermaid hair, beckoned, 

and she leaned into the sweet awareness of loving

the precious freedom of being neither here nor there 

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: iwona_kellie via Wikimedia

Who (Day 381)

who gets 

to have less 

I don’t want to 

think about 

who gets to 

have more

who stays or 

leaves who is born 

or is lost

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: William McKinley campaign poster, 

ca. 1895–1900 US Library of Congress

Experiment (Day 371)

Almost Always True (Day 366)

The only things are bitter 

words and politics and cold 

blue sky aching tired and 

purring under a warm river of 

chocolate and chamber music 

reading and resting warmly 

wrapped in the things we used 

to love how they lifted and 

lightened our troubles until 

they merely floated away like 

feverish dreams and poetry 

winter and absinthe inspire 

and so that’s all I able to give 

to you but at least you knew

it was always almost true 

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Advertising poster for "Absinthe Rosinette",

 published by Imprimerie Camis, Paris, circa 1900; 

via Wikimedia Commons

Distress (Day 365)

I did not think 

we’d come

to this

I did not think 

we’d last 

so long

as a first kiss or 

a sparrow’s song

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image via Pexels

Silken Grip (Day 364)

When the hand lets go   the fingers 

continue to meet   forming an O of 

conspiratorial approval   a manual 

wink   and the glass tumbles to 

the carpet   the clink of ice and 

slice of lime giving voice to 

otherwise-silent sin    the street 

outside fizzes with traffic and 

surely-fascinating conversation   

if only she could hear more clearly   

and she strains her ears to make out 

the words   When the mind lets go   

thoughts continue to seep out onto 

the page   into a world embraced by 

the jumble of thrice-used plastic 

bags favored by the divorced woman

d'un certain âge who abstains from 

the silken grips of costly leather 

satchels   and the need to sustain her 

well-heeled husband’s grim-lipped 

approval   for the freedom to let go

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Kelly bag

Wen-Cheng Liu/Wikimedia Commons