By Peggy HammondTo the woman beside me
who says she’s vegetarian
but delicately selects a ham
sandwich for lunch, I too know
confusion as friend.
Once, I called myself bride
but the universe slid me
toward widowed, a month
began in white but
closed in black,
tidy trick of the light.
Seasons twirled past
in a mad dance while
I became brittle,
a dry leaf dropped from a tree,
lost in a dizzying surplus
of hours.
What to do when you master
ballet and a kickboxer arrives.
What to do when constellations
rearrange themselves, when
the North Star goes on
holiday, refuses
to show the way.
Peggy Hammond’s recent poems appear or are forthcoming in Roanoke Review, The Spotlong Review, ZiN Daily, Ghost City Review, Salvation South, The Shore, Street Cake Magazine, NELLE, Dust Poetry Magazine, Blue Lake Review, Harpur Palate, and elsewhere. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net, and her book The Fifth House Tilts (Kelsay Books 2022) received an Eric Hoffer Poetry Award nomination. Learn more at https://peggyhammondpoetry.com/