Hanna Elson
Two Poems
On Severing the Maternal Circuitry
Left lying in the dirt between the roots of a great Oak, coming down from every drug that night, my mother with the German tongue down her throat, her face stuck in a gorgeous contour since the 70s. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, a big heart that learned how to lie, remembered a little girl crying at the post office in the mountains of Pennsylvania. The sky felt heavy, too wide, and nothing was good enough for my dad.
Built Like a Bear Trap
Two boys pull the silver from my skin. They nail my braids to a tree on White Mtn, say, “When you get free, we’ll respect you again.” The birds turn to shadows. I still hear them. I listen. Impossibly delicate doesn’t mean tame. Finger drums the skin above my right hip, waiting while I untie strings I’ve worn since birth. Unfastened, I slip into water flowing down Mountain to her valley. Mountain that raised me looks no different than the others. Threatening demeanor drowns where the creek widens. The boys find me there. We eat together. One says, “I’ll be father, you be child, until you finish school.” He chokes. The gamey shit has strings.
Hanna Elson grew up in New York. She presently lives in western North Carolina, where she studies, writes, and records music. Her poetry has recently appeared in Stirring, filling Station, Martian Lit, and Ginger Piglet Magazine. She has work forthcoming in Stone Highway Review.
