When I was ten, the insides of my father’s mouth

by Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick

Turned to a garden. He would walk
& the earth would fall out—acorn & oak
Leaves, his menthol cigarettes. Sometimes,
A canary cooed his tongue
With lemon-yellow sonnets. Angry
His secrets fell.
He circled for hours in the yard
What his mother carved into him, a curse.
It will befall you, too. His hands
Large canteens filled with liquor & ice-cream,
Releasing pressure wherever we’d go—
The feed store, the rig, to buy chicken
From KFC—behind him, I’d walk
The path of dirt & desire & ever the good daughter,
Light his hidden bodies on fire.

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Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick's work has appeared in Salt Hill, Versal, The Texas Observer, Devil's Lake, Four Way Review, Sugar House Review, and Huffington Post UK, among others. A graduate from Sarah Lawrence College's MFA program, Hardwick serves as the poetry editor for The Boiler Journal and her first full-length, Before Isadore, was published by Sundress Publications. She currently lives in a village outside Cambridge, England.