Poems by Shannon Hardwick

BARTENDER-LONELY

How can you stand so many

people, I ask, drunk. Shirts dirty

themselves for the washing, waiting

for a woman’s hands, he said, I’d steal

their laughter, pawn it for a handgun

just to piss someone off. I’d drink

myself into mystical states, I’d get sick

on her doorstep for a glass

of water. I’d do this for anyone

who ever loved my sorry ass.

 

FRANCINE WANTS A FARM IN MISSOURI

Francine dreamed a deer drug her heart across five states. It was told to eat slowly. Francine dreamed the dear, before getting there, wrapped its neck around wire. My heart was hit, she writes, by a trucker called Grace. If I cut my arms, there’s space. Francine feels the weight of five states. If I had a farm in Missouri, she writes, I’d believe in destruction and healing. Francine believes she’ll eat the dear slowly and fill her heart. If not, she writes, I’ll cut my arm. I’ll buy a farm. Marry a trucker called Grace.

 

River 31

The snake sang on the bank

Belted about being born empty

Let us fill, he said, each need

Twice. He took to swimming

Beside me because I was lonely

And asked, What do you dance for

The belt around my waist became

A river. All the fish found me naked

Then I knew, bodies were made

To be broken, loved. This song,

The snake sang, keep near

To your belly. I became a wild

Dancer yet again. Keep going.

The river woke. Night-birds

Hid in fear. Eggs began to appear

And I, the woman, ate in silence

Every last stone-bread

Of the buried men’s hearts.

 

Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick received her Masters in Fine Arts from Sarah Lawrence College in 2010. She recently completed her first full-length manuscript of essays and poetry and has a chapbook in print and one forthcoming with Mouthfeel Press. She is the resident poet for Port Yonder Press' online magazine Beyondaries and her work has been featured or is upcoming in 3:AM Magazine, Night Train, Versal, Sugar House Review, among others. She writes in the deserts of West Texas.