Through wet leaves, through separation
of old tenderness from new, I’m relieved
our marriage keeps turning over.
Last summer, I thought I’d run
with the opposition. First,
it was A, then
A again, but different.
Staying isn’t easy
when you’re born with a door
in the chest, a mouth full of crickets.
Our song slows in the fall. But,
like a machine, we’re still here
with arms as instruments we predict
with an algorithm. Marriage is an error
mixed with success, a commander’s call
before deploying, a misinterpreted
order translated into courtship,
a winter field overlooking bodies.
–
Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick’s work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Gulf Coast, Salamander Magazine, Frontier Poetry, MAGMA Poetry, The Texas Observer, Four Way Review, The Missouri Review, and Passages North, among others. Hardwick serves as editor-in-chief for The Boiler Journal.