After the Hospital Call
I read a book about death. It was
just a concept. No names
given, no history. In it, a woman
lost a child. It happens. I had
lost one too, I told myself.
The truth—everyone carries
their dead door to door, asking
to be an exception. We should
keep a string around the wrist,
wear a necklace, something
to remind us the body is heavy.
The back can bear a heavy burden
before we realize we are the door
through which death greets us.
Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick‘s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Salamander Magazine, Salt Hill, Maudlin House, The Texas Observer, PANK, Four Way Review, Diologist, Harpur Palate, and Passages North, among others. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College’s MFA program, Hardwick serves as the poetry editor for The Boiler Journal and her first full-length is available from Sundress Publications.
