by Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick
I want to live under
an umbrella
where birds braid
hair as a five-year-old
from the time before
his mother went missing—
I want both parents
well rested, strawberries
a stone’s throw
from the window,
but no river in
which to drown, to live
in the moment
before a phone rings
& shatters the entire
family room.
::
Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick’s work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Gulf Coast Journal, Salamander, Poetry London, Salt Hill, Plume, The Texas Observer, Four Way Review, and Passages North, among others.
Image: “Cloud of Unknowing” by Sarah J. Sloat
ID: a collage of two images on cream background: a white cloud on top and a bunch of green grass on bottom.
Psaltery & Lyre 