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

Twice as Cold (Day 327)

There, stern water, gray 

as iron, and twice as cold

—boldness froths like 

whitecaps at your telling, 

yarns of hard-won wisdom 

beat black pearls for treasure, 

chests of gold, hard-hearted 

gems for warmth, their value 

neither won nor sold, 

nor useful when you’re growing 

old with no delightful company 

to make you laugh until you cry, 

to warm your sheets when 

bitter cold creeps beneath 

your unsealed door.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Wolfgang.Mller54

Happy Endings (Day 244)

tragic fiction, happy endings:

flying away 

to some extended-stay hotel 

in some guy’s magic land   

where partly sunny ruins the day

the world is cruel business, see? 

sometimes this strikes me funny 

like laughing at a funeral, death 

do us part

happy few go on forever as 

they start, those poor nine-lives cats 

and breeding bunnies, whose tales 

aren't much worth 

    writing about

        what I don't want to be 

            interested in what I think 

I'm trying to get at, to know, is the truth: 

life just feels more real when 

you drink your coffee from a broken cup, 

when dawn wakes up 

to greet you—you—

with the cold dew on your toes

(c) by Hannah Six

Image: aingnamma