Mid-to-Late Motherhood
In this instant, geese fly away
from the palm of my domed sky
on the way to somewhere warmer.
For months, the sun shrouded
in shadow in the garden. I slept & dreamt
& I let go of my body, of what to expect,
as only a mother can. Above the roofs of many
houses, I once wanted
to claim a whole village. In my youth,
evenings arrived as a proposal
of marriage in perfect light.
In a kitchen cupboard, I hid each lie
I told myself – time is perpetual persimmons
on a walk in Central Park. It never snows.
What happened won't happen
again. You won't double yourself,
return with a child in a field,
break up a flock & collect a body
only to bury it
again. Then again.
Shannon Hardwick's work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Magma Poetry, Gulf Coast Journal, The Texas Observer, The Missouri Review, Four Way Review, Harpur Palate, Sixth Finch, and Passages North, among others.