Jane (Day 495)

History whispers.

Intimate unknowable.

She speaks in shadows.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Coming Years (Day 439)

imagining majestic scenes 

and indigo horizons, 

steeling himself, he walks 

purposefully toward his first flight, 

white-knuckled 

grip on the leather handles 

of his bags

before today, exotic meant 

a drive-up in a neighboring state,

a girl whose seamed hose 

looked almost as soft as her 

bare legs, and dancing 

to jazzy music, late at night, 

in the parking lot 

the symphonic prairie, 

vast—glowing as it would in all 

his coming years 

of dreams—blooming beneath 

the milky way, blowsy 

and heavy with memories 

as a late-autumn rose.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: EvgeniT/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.

Very Few Women (Day 416)

Very few women my age 

worked with visionaries. 

We were too busy: talking, 

frosting birthday cakes,

mopping the floors to

a mirrorlike finish. Really, 

being a housewife was

a very big deal. Respectable. 

My friends and I grew up 

looking forward to keeping 

our own homes. Now, it’s 

called something different: 

domestic engineering.

These young girls today, 

they think they want it all: 

Dating, college, husbands, 

corner-office careers, and 

then the kids, and those 

ridiculous jogging strollers—

they don’t run enough?

We could have done it all,

too, of course, but we 

focused on raising our sons 

and daughters to be less like 

their parents. Well, I for one 

am just glad I was able to be 

there for my children when 

they came home from school. 

The world is different now, 

though, isn’t it? Too expensive. 

And dangerous—all these men 

with guns, shooting everyone! 

Who knows? My turn may be 

next. Or yours. So, we’ll see.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: ArtsyBee/Pixabay

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

The Unthinkable (Day 361)

How do you find 

language to describe 

what no longer exists?

Is it a vacuum?

An absence? A lack?

How will you

explain what it was like 

when morning came 

and you found yourself

unable to pronounce

the title with

<his name>?

Unable to link words,

one by one, into 

a chain strong enough 

to safely convey 

the unthinkable?

What is it like for you

to imagine that 

dwindling time 

when the acknowledged

remained unimaginable? 

When dead-eyed, vapid,

and vacant were animated, 

instead, by mercy, 

intelligence, and humanity? 

Will you help them, 

one day, understand 

how we allowed our 

pure freedom

to be smeared and sullied

by the sticky fingers 

of unheeded warnings?

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: djacoby/Pixabay

This is how history works (Day 345)

This is how history works.

Disgusting, irresponsible 

requests that start to sound 

strange to your ear, 

after the fourth

or fourteenth 

or forty-thousandth time

you hear them repeated.

Men and women, reading

aloud from storybooks,

not reading what needs

to be read, deciding 

things best left undecided 

by anyone but God 

(or whatever you prefer 

to call the great Mystery),

such as, “When does life start?”

or “What is the meaning of art?”

There are no set boundaries,

no term limits on genius,

where literature,

or music, or architecture 

are concerned.

Imagine, then, the absurdity

of government, among a people

unwilling to lift up 

their voices to demand justice 

for their neighbors, 

their friends, 

their fellow citizens.

Look: They cannot figure out

how to feel about a painting 

of a Campbell’s Soup can,

or Crayola’s new crayon colors, 

or whether Disco should have died.

That is how history works:

It is a beautiful and flawed

choose-your-own-adventure 

tale, and we must find a way 

to decide.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962), by Andy Warhol

via Wikimedia Commons

Decadent Elders (Day 273)

decadent elders tucked 

  away 

in black cashmere 

     ghostly 

clouds of smoke 

and silken shame 

       swirl  

excuses ugly 

in their chests none but 

the youngest 

meet the eye 

          glimmer 

of voices cherished 

      proclaim 

sparkling raised 

   to block 

the noonday sun 

     without 

that special something fun  

   you just can’t live 

so generously 

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: The End of Dinner, 1913, Jules-Alexandre Grün

It's Like That (Day 264)

It isn’t a slow song that gets to me, 

but the shuffle of boots across

a sawdust floor, dry as august 

weeds, screen door banging against 

the frame from time to time, 

red dust coating on the chairs. 

It’s the way a certain singer’s voice 

breaks just there, at the edge of that 

single note, and how the steel guitar 

falls away from the band to sway 

through a slow swing solo. 

The beer is just okay. The crowd, 

rough as brand new, 

never-been-washed 501s.

But that boy, with the silver band 

around the crown of his dark brown hat? 

The way his eyes darken as he plays, 

and the skin at the nape of my neck 

tingles in anticipation? He brings me 

back, and back again.

It’s like the shuffle of bare feet on 

a wide-plank kitchen floor, the scent of 

strong coffee brewing on the frost-bitten 

edge of a long autumn morning. It’s like 

the sunlight glazing each falling leaf 

against the backdrop of a cedar forest, 

so the trees seem to be raining fire. 

Yeah. It’s like that.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Photo: Charles C Pierce, Inside the Yellow Aster Saloon, Randsburg, California, ca.1900

Newlywed (Day 263)

Look at me,

waking up thinking

about you, a thousand miles

away. On my finger, a ring,

unmarred, bright with shining

dreams and burdensome

realities. Do you wake

up this way, too—wondering

about me, here in the sun—

on your frost-crisp northern

mornings? Or have the wheels

of your world continued their slow

and steady progress, 

carrying, removing 

you, ever further away?

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

TeerawatWinyarat

The Sweet Spot (Day 256)

The sameness vast       the sweet spot on the map 

of me alone                    the plans we made 

together gone                an opaque white curtain

and you my future        in a box to carry 

where I go only              snow empty and white

when I look forward     only a shadow of light

hardly a glow and          yet I know it does

I suppose that’s just      the way it goes

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Original image: NairnBairn

One Shakes (Day 243)

one shakes off 

the droplets of pewter sky and

the dog-damp air settling in cracks and

the iridescent fairy dust of adolescent longing

because now 

powder puff snowbanks have given way

to faded crevasses   shade-flooded and 

rimmed with quicksilver

how is one to live 

when golden lines of poison goose-step 

down boulevards of half-remembered dreams?

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Public Domain

155th Anniversary (Day 242)

Fallen stories gather 

Looming suddenly through vast fog

Buried in verdant fields

Words and image of Antietam National Battlefield, (c) 2017 by Hannah Six

Wallflowers (Day 234)

This is what I 

find dismaying:

one year in, we’re 

still replaying 

stories of our 

past golden years 

and gossiping 

about our fears. 

What we need now

is a firm stance:

Wallflowers don’t 

get asked to dance.

Last time we were 

caught unaware—

next round will go

to they who dare.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Emma Frances Logan

What You Saw (Day 218)

What you saw

through the glass

that night

eyes blazing

with bitter fear

What you heard 

that growl

white knuckles

hair flying howling 

with rage pacing 

and prowling like 

a caged tiger

What you saw

tore you apart

and engulfed you

engulfed your heart

but it could not 

will never 

take it 

away 

from us

(c) 2017 by Hannah Six

Image: StockSnap

Are You the Same (Day 213)

are you 

the same one

or did i succumb  

to thin gray sleep 

at dawn  and dream

your name 

look back 

at the day  drawn 

bright  askew

how  in the damp 

blue evening 

we can be 

the light

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Antietam Battlefield, Robshenk