print previewback DAVID HUDDLE & MEIGHAN L. SHARP
from Effusive Greetings to Friends
Ms. Hicks does not believe
in old’s fulcrum
but attempts to find
it anyway. Was it the year
washing her own hair
became too much
trouble? Or the year
she burned all files
with her fall leaves—
snapshots missing
labels, her dead
sister’s record
of birth, her first
grade diary,
ephemera
loosed from pages
in one sharp shake
over the flames?
Her life’s
going up around her—
gorgeous smoke hair
ash bones, the dirt-
smudged child she was
hunched over
a page, penciling
and scratching out
her misspelled future
destinashuns.
Oh, but
here, in this new place,
Ms. Hicks gives up
longing; when it
appears she smacks
it in the face.
We see her now,
at the playground
with her socket
wrench, bending
to dismantle the seesaw.
Contributor’s notes: David Huddle
Contributor’s notes: Meighan L. Sharp