I worry the hammer writing its bite
in a script of bruises doesn’t distinguish
between fiction and prayer. I don’t ask
for much. Sunlight more like bed than whip
of gold. Or, in the afternoon, whisky
drizzle instead of a sky-shredded soak.
I ask that the hinges of my body
swing as smooth as a wet tongue over teeth.
These things don’t always come to pass. Instead
I learn that most times all the hammer tells
is distance. A long, long story of me
shaping myself and finally learning
to ask you to gather me as if I
were petals in the rush of a cold stream.
Header photograph © Caroline Bardwell.
Dane Hamann works as an editor for a textbook publisher in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from Northwestern University, where he also currently serves as the poetry editor of TriQuarterly.