Hannah Darling Fenn
Helix
There was an orb signaled
And a mother soaking her hair in coffee
With shoes kicked off
And no showmanship of the ether.
And I found the center of all my lives
On a hot summer sidewalk at dusk.
With the crickets and thick melting
Nostalgia.
All of that.
And a thousand denim babies
Asking me when we’re going to the store.
When will we buy ourselves.
When will we rest on her earth.
When will we sip cold soda like children
And build the long ladders
Like a helix
That have us at the bottom
And us at the top.
And Such
This is a night desert walk
And her second rebirth
Has gone a bit tipsy turvy.
Which feels like peace washed over.
Which feels like a highway chant coming home.
Which is not of-the-flesh.
But made in her ethereal house
Where wayfaring crows hold up each picket of fence
And wide circles of the by and by
Split like some broken ring of earth
And ache for her to sing them whole.
Her son has this face
Which harbors some engulfed vibration
Of every forest she walked
Before him.
And another wild-less howl:
Let your babies,
Cowboys.
Hannah Darling Fenn is a poet, freelance journalist, and mother. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband and their three young sons. Hannah studied creative writing at Southern Oregon University and her work has appeared in Wend Poetry.