A story worth telling (Day 346)

This woman is reading 

aloud 

to her children,

after working a 10-hour day.

This woman is a warrior.

She is on a mission of

wisdom, knowing deep in her 

battered and dazzling soul,

that there’s no better way 

to teach them 

about the world, about

how to stand up and

how speak out, 

how to engage 

how to help and

how to fight for 

what they know 

is right, and 

how to know 

what is right. 

“Imagine,” she says to them, 

without saying the words.

“Imagine how all of our 

voices coming together 

could lift us up, and 

break us out. Now 

that will be a story

worth telling.”

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: “In the end...” by Doug Youvan

Native Intelligence (Day 287)

He comes and goes 

under cover of darkness, 

even on a sunlit day,

the soft click click click 

of his bike gears

often the only sound 

giving him away 

when he wheels it, 

scowling and stomping, 

under my window

because he does 

not like to work.

It’s a shame, really, 

considering

his native intelligence, 

uncultivated and neglected, 

despite the myriad 

advantages that 

ripened and fell, plum-like,

onto the green grass 

around him while 

he idled on the lawn 

outside the modest but clean

white vinyl-sided house

where he grew shabby

and thick with weeds. 

His few friends--

partners in crime, 

his mother joked 

each night when he came in

--might have considered 

his descent a warning, 

had they grown up

in a town worth 

staying in--or even 

a town worth leaving.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: TheoLeo via Pixabay 

By the Phone (Day 285)

Upstairs  

in the spare 

room   imagining

your face 

with a mixture 

of dread 

and longing

I hang up 

the phone   cord 

snaps back 

into place   

  phones 

    had 

     twisty 

 spiral

    cords 

  then   

and tiptoe down

the stairs 

because my mother 

forbade me to 

call boys   I was 

supposed to wait  

for them 

to phone me   

but    somehow

the threat of 

being alone always 

terrified me 

more 

than my mother’s 

quick temper.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Free image via MaxPixel

I Am Cold Weather (Day 223)

Today I am cold weather   damp 

and wind-chimes   after that picturesque 

and uninteresting summer

     What can I say

     Outside cars read the street like Braille 

     running wet fingertips

     over the night she was buried 

and I climbed into my mother's lap 

and she held me 

and I cried

and then she dipped my fingers 

and toes in warm honey

and brought me upstairs 

and tucked me in to bed again

     Gone now   like summer 

and I am wearing thick woolen sweaters 

and socks to warm  

and I'm in bed

     —warm cat cool sheets—

and I miss the days when everything 

     seemed like it would be all right 

     for a while

and we were so happy 

and wet 

and windblown 

     into that narrow restaurant

     in a gust of leaves

and umbrellas insufficient for 

     an oncoming hurricane

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Photo: Roman Boed