The Milky Way beckons
like a door; how does a person
become undone? Death
raises love in me, like cream
to the surface. I am surprised
by the depth of it. How many ways
I am learning to love: others, myself.
A new black hole has been discovered,
massive beyond record. Everything
within is held tightly from our known
Universe. For now, you are still
alive and watch as I change
my daughter on your hospital bed.
She holds your finger, unaware.
If I could bring us to the edge
of this inverted star, would time stop?
–
Emily Hockaday (she/her) is the author of In a Body (Harbor Editions, 2023), Naming the Ghost (Cornerstone Press, 2022), and six chapbooks. Her third full-length collection, Blood Music, comes out with Harbor Editions on February 20, 2025. She is a De Groot Foundation Writer of Note and a Café Royal Cultural Foundation, NY City Artist Corps, and NYFA Queens Art Fund recipient. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals in print and online, including Electric Literature and the North American Review. She is the editor of Heartbeat of the Universe (Interstellar Flight Press, 2024). Emily writes about ecology, parenthood, the urban environment, and chronic illness.