I eat more in your absence than you do in mine. our animals never meet. I’ve a painting and you’ve a picture of eve reaching for an aspirin. an angel is a ghost on fire.
my brother was allowed as many dolls as could fit in an elevator and my sister had a voice could convince god to be our least successful memory exercise. myself I would circle a date on the calendar and it would come and I would circle another. this is how I killed myself.
I would ask that you name
your dog
loss
is not
a teacher (then love a longer kitten
(like an angel
might
an ashtray, more
even
like your mother
a thing on its way
to being
bird
(or shaped
not uncommon in a household of grief
for one
to be bad
with names.
(the radio
an animal
that misses
its bones
Danielle Hanson is the author of Fraying Edge of Sky (Codhill Press Poetry Prize, 2018) and Ambushing Water (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2017). Her work won the Vi Gale Award from Hubbub, was Finalist for 2018 Georgia Author of the Year Award and was nominated for several Pushcarts and Best of the Nets. She is Poetry Editor for Doubleback Books, and is on the staff of the Atlanta Review. More about her at daniellejhanson.com.
~~.
Cat Love
The cat loves his kill,
walks around it in
circles, nuzzles it
softly, purrs
into its wounds,
wants to bring it inside
his soft belly.
.~~
Mouse
The mouse
collects footfalls
to make a nest,
gives birth
to a litter of winds.
.~~.
tell me again
how it is
that dream
stops
tooth decay
in angels / why it is
that I can hear
in the darkroom
post-god
the ghost
muscle
of weeping
/ when it was they found the suckling
and not the bones
of a wave
kingsoftrain 