Three Poems
Where He Goes I Hear Hooves
Last night I wrote about a boy
on the side of the highway selling
sweet apples from the earth unaware
his father, already drunk at noon,
twisted his mom’s wrist like the neck
of the first rabbit they killed together
one October near the draw of CR 1230
where his brother once ripped open
a case of Coors before hitting the only
tree in his life as he exited the field &
how maybe their parents grew more
complicated & how anger at the world
can reach a point as thin as a wrist, how
turning another to pain is communication.
This is what I think about when the man
I’m afraid of falling for tells me he wants
to see my face when he helps my body
understand how the world can give me
apples dipped in fire, a cannonball both
dangerous and gentle—the way a horse
exits the gate of the field where it once felt
safe, now looks only at the mountain & runs.
The Time I Sailed a Boat Through a Pinkie’s Liquor Store
Trying to write about it is like the time I tried to catch
a fish with my father in the olive green boat, one red
oar & the gun on the bankside remembered me,
body over the edge, watching for something
to take hold. He said I probably wouldn’t
catch anything on the first day. Maybe a sunfish,
or small-mouth bass. Would it hurt to hold it,
would I know what to do to keep it from slipping
off the boat. Maybe I wouldn’t want to do anything
at all. Nothing. Then more of it. Then a movement.
He said, Here, hold it. I felt the pull go through me,
wanted more control, less, almost let go before
remembering. My hands & the gun on the banks
earlier in the day, the first time to hold something
so unpredictable. When I pulled the trigger
I almost fell over, wanted more so shot again,
& again, I asked to shoot it. Small body somehow
larger. This is how I’d write about the moment
you were the fish, or was I—didn’t matter.
We were in a liquor store, moving through
the isles like two kids who didn’t want anything
but more time. Then I lost you for a moment,
walked back & forth before turning to see you
weave through the American & Canadian
whiskey Isle. Oh this, I thought, after my body
leapt stomach first off the edge of the boat.
I Have Leapt Off the Boat & This is What That Looks Like
Three hours after you left, my body still
remembers receiving yours, as a body
of water & a boat, leaving wakes as I sleep,
or try to—into the space your face was
this morning in a light I’ve tried to write
before, possibilities & an opening-up
through curtains as I study the shapes
before me before you open your eyes &
catch the look. Will you turn over, pretend
sleep. Will you look back, as one reaches
into the water over a boat moving fast enough
to sting the hand yet make brilliant splashes
& like a true fisherman, lift the heart-fish
out of me, dissect the body in the sun,
hold it to the fire & make it taste good
to your mouth. Because I want to be fed
as much as I want to feed whatever it is
you need. To know I love someone & it’s you.
Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. Her first full-length book, Before Isadore, is forthcoming from Sundress Publications. She is an associate poetry editor for The Boiler Journal. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the following: Salt Hill, Stirring, Versal, The Texas Observer, Devil’s Lake, and Four Way Review, among others. Hardwick also has chapbooks out with Thrush Press and Mouthfeel Press. She writes in the deserts of West Texas.