Diagnosis
It is the first of April. I expected more.
The sky is metal. Yesterday, I left half
My tea. Distracted by little
And littler things, though you’d think
The gale outside my window
Would rush in like a marshal, barking
Orders—how to prepare the body
And the home; which emergent threat
To bargain with next. But I take more
Notice ushering my children out of the bath,
Fuss less about the water on the floor—
It is the first of April. I expected more.
The garden, grey. The children, bored.
You’d think the sick would rush in like a wave.
But what comes next, I ignore. Wondering
On little, still littler, things—not,
For instance, news my mother has cancer—
I expected more. And little things—
You think they won’t matter. But
Most of your life, they do.
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.
