Quilt (Poem 296)

His coffee cup meets the table: crack. She winces, and looks away from his shameful anger. The world, after all, is acknowledged to be unfair and unpredictable; but it is also graced with the gentle, everyday beauty she witnesses from this very window while she sews. With calm certainty, she knows he will soon wander back to her chair. With practiced nonchalance, he'll wrap her in a one-armed embrace and kiss her--first on her forehead, then on her left cheek, and finally, tenderly, on her slightly-parted lips.

Layers, thick and thin,

Married with fine filaments,

Pliant, enduring

(c) 2014, by Hannah Six

(Teachable moment: This form is known as Haibun, a short work of prose combined with a gently-related haiku. And now you know!)

After a While You Forget (Poem 295)

After a while you simply forget. 

You forget how to stand up, to sit 

   down, and how to move. 

You forget how to walk with liquid strides,

   how to swim 42 long, silent laps, 

   while shafts of sunlight sink

   into the cool tourmaline pool.

You forget how to talk to people 

   you meet while lingering over a

   mediocre Malbec on a shady patio, 

   how to chat with that sweet girl in 

   the pet store, who always looks at you 

   with a curious concern in 

   her rain-colored eyes.

You even (and not infrequently) forget 

   how to organize your thoughts into an 

   email to a friend from back home.

You certainly forget how to climb across

   seaweed-slick boulders at low tide,

   plucking hermit crabs from tide-pools

   to marvel at their affronted bravado 

   and the perfection of their tiny claws.

After a while, you even forget how 

   to dash across a snowy intersection

   for a five-dollar slab of 

   moist, gritty pretzels from a guy 

   with a shopping cart at Sixth and Vine,  

   and, you realize with a soft whoosh 

   of surprise, 

how to settle into the low-slung wobble

   and sway of the subway 

   on your way to 'the Vet' for 

   a Twi-Night Double Header 

   on a July afternoon so hot and 'umid

   that the air feels oxygen depleted, 

   as if it had already been breathed.

 (c) 2014, by Hannah Six

Partly Sunny (Poem 294)

Partly-sunny skies 

(Nice name for partly cloudy):

White sails on blue sea.

(c) 2014, Hannah Six

Insomnia (Poem 293)

There are days when you want to talk, 

    but don't want anyone to hear 

    what you're saying, 

         when you want to share your writing

         without first having to edit your words, 

             when you want to sing, but don't 

             want people to hear the roughness 

             of your voice.

There are days when you climb in bed 

    exhausted, but don't want to sleep, 

         when you want to hide in your home, 

         but can't bear the thought that you might 

         miss something exciting, 

             when you feel the cold deep 

             in your bones, but resist the weight 

             of the warm brown blanket.

There are days when someone waits 

    for you, but you are unwilling to hurry, 

        when your belly gurgles and groans 

        with hunger, but you cannot bring yourself 

        to swallow food, 

            when you dream that you've awakened,

            and then, upon waking, find that your life 

            was nothing more than a sweet dream all 

            along, and that you have suddenly 

            developed insomnia.

(c) 2014, by Hannah Six

Sri Lanka* (Poem 292)

Serendipity: a silly schoolgirl dream

      to leave the pitted streets and

Ruled lines of my home, 

Intimately known through years

      of delicate fingering and tasting, 

Lingering like a deer at the 

      lapping edge of the floodwaters 

      of 

Awareness, 

Never veering from the course I set    

      before I was me, 

      before I knew the searing 

Kiln of age 

      firing my bones, 

      the chill of condensation settling 

      like a scarf around my ankles,    

      almost (but never quite) 

      far enough

Away.

(c) 2014, by Hannah Six

*In response to an exercise suggested by Poet Carolyne Wright at a workshop in Auburn, Wa.

September Saturday Night (Poem 291)

Before you speak, a song 

swings into my bias-cut mind,

draping these dreams in veils

blue as smoke, as indigo,

as sky reflected in sea 

reflected in your eyes.

Try as I might--melody

becomes you, finds me, 

swaying in your arms while 

the champagne sky sparkles 

overhead, harmonizing with 

the varied charms of this 

September Saturday night.

(c) 2014, by Hannah Six

Garden Party (Poem 290)

And, this afternoon, when 

the bleached sun is burnished gold, 

all the wrong people will gather 

to forage in the garden, like squirrels, 

for old chestnuts of simplicity, and 

the bitter acorns from which resilience 

springs. Predictably, they will come up 

empty-handed and stand, mumbling, 

in groups of three and four 

before retiring to an elegant pergola,

like so many overripe summer 

fruits piled into a sticky brass bowl 

in a sunny spot.

(c) 2014, by Hannah Six