Hannah

i.
in a deep, inky darkness, a dance hall, shrouded
with smoke, the smell of beer, Hannah sits and listens

to the striking confessions of
a soul not yet learned to dance.

when the smoke fades, she does not
hesitate. she moves, like a chess piece,

to checkmate. your move:
when there already is none left.

she says, i can't stop thinking
about you. i've got to see you.

her intensity can be mistaken for
drunkenness, her confusion for inadequacy.

she will tell you herself,
i am a woman who is deeply troubled.

the connection drops. the gloaming,
set in rough velvet, makes the voices lower,

into static on the phone. Hannah remains,
after each loss - that's how you can turn away.

the fens remember only the clicking
of her heels, an impish sound, unsteady in

rhythm, still a prayer, still that
insistent cry of more life, more life.

ii.
like Hannah, i cannot stop thinking.
God. God, i am still here, as you are

still here. and that yearning, wanting to be moved,
is all i have left, after friends, lover

after lover have been lost, after those
insistent cries. more life. more.

i am small now before you, a black dot
on the pure, starch-white snow, still wrestling

with the split mind state that is the condition
of my existence: i will keep losing, you, even.

but loss must be recoverable. Hannah could
have given up much: a first love,

a second, a firstborn, his knowledge of her.
but i just want. so i can wake up again.

==

Notes:
I've been wanting to and meaning to write the "Hannah" poem for well over a month now. The first notes I have for it are dated March 5th, and most of them made it into the poem. Nonetheless, having written the poem now, it neither feels complete nor does justice to the things I was thinking about: the essential and honest parts of a person, often hidden, loss and yearning, the semi-real vs. the Biblical Hannah, where I fit into that story, etc. Is it my story or Hannah's story? Both. Neither. And neither of us are reacting to human actions, perhaps. Only life. Still, the poem feels incomplete, and falls short of the expectation begotten from the month-long gestation. That's how it always is though: the longer you wait to write it, the worse it becomes. Something about poetry not being literal truth should make me feel better, but I don't know if it does.

And, credit where credit is due: Biblical Hannah is from 1 Samuel, yearning is from Marie Howe (I had originally written, "that yearning, just like Marie said," but decided against the mention in the body of the poem for a number of reasons), and the idea of recoverable loss is from Tony Kushner.