Squaretable Seminars

Twenty Years Ago,
My Father Was Buried On a Board


On a hill in the country, a rolling cemetery sits
in place of a field. Summer grasses cradle one mound
where a lone star sinks down with each rain. There, six feet beneath,
green diamonds are pieced together in patterned fabric. The tiny dots and dashes,
evenly marked for scissors and needle, are gone; but a thread weaves in between, marking time and holding
the universe together. Eight sharp points star the white ground, where a man’s bones face west to watch the fading daylight wash over the corn.


© Hannah Walleser

At a Zero-Tolerance School


on the whiteboard
of the boy’s varsity locker room
a death threat
is written.

The police are called, and some football player
and his sidekick own up to it.

The message is erased.

Here,
when something is wrong,
the star player still starts.

Here,
when a student changes schools,
or drops out of classes,
or hangs himself,

no one can seem to figure out
the reason why.


© Hannah Walleser

Sometimes I scratch my head,
but then I realize that there is a certain blindness
rampant in the process of finding.
And I concede to the fact that only crazies
attempt the unreasonable and come up with results.

Other times I tap my fingers as if
a string of beings will parade up out of the depths
of the reservoir of my repertoire.
And I think there is no way to reach
even the most possible of impossibilities.

But it’s the times that I disappear,
whirling among the dust particles by the window,
that I realize I’ve manifested the very thing
I thought I had only dreamed.
I had only forgotten how to see.


© Hannah Walleser

Cobbled stones line the city, slick in the streets,
Dry stone walls stacked simply around the fields,
Grey blue rain drizzles down,
. And the land floods.

Pubs carve into buildings like twisted caverns,
A permanent green soaked into the land,
Lakes rise in the wake of fields in the hills,
. And the rivers gorge.

Irish in the supermarket and doubled on signs,
Clam chowder eaten with thick brown bread,
Fog swallows the isle’s west islands,
. And the road
. That has never flooded
. Floods.


© Hannah Walleser

The six-year-old boy
in the silver
balloon floated fifty
miles away.
Hours later when it
reached the ground,
people rejoiced.
I want my fifteen
minutes of fame.


© Hannah Walleser

A mother robin gathered grass
And stuffed it into the vent
Of the newer bathroom.
She must have found it cozy
So laid her eggs there.
We taped the fan switch to “off”
So none of us could
Accidentally
Flip it on and find ourselves
Covered in bloody baby robin down.
But they couldn’t stay there.

We climbed a ladder
And with a gloved hand
Reached in and pulled out
The squawking babies
One by one
And flung them
To the sidewalk below.
If the mother was there
She made no sign of protest.
Not one of the four died
On impact.

We took a shovel,
Tried to clunk one on the head,
Tried to slit another’s throat,
As they chirped
And flapped weak wings
And wriggled.
So we scraped them up
On the metal arm
And plopped them in the cornfield
To die or be eaten.


© Hannah Walleser

Our place is covered in dust:
. chalky grey,
. peach,
. and mauve.
We stand on land compacted:
. brown and powdery,
. that crumbles and sticks
. like ash to the eyes.
We cannot shake this pale veil
. fallen like a shadow
. over the sun.
And that bright shining globe
. is the Vatican.
You might want to come
. visit before
. we’ve disappeared.


© Hannah Walleser

Today I performed my first improv slam poem. Talk about nerve-racking. My word to work in was prank. Yeah, that's what I thought when I read it. w.t.f. can I do with this?

So I titled my poem something like Forfeit This: a 5th Grade Poem Revised in reference to things in class. There is no way I can paraphrase what came out of my brain/mouth next though. I said my ballroom dance class is a metaphor for my life and went with it. Soooooo difficult to get up and improv a poem with 30 seconds of preparation. Damn.

I cannot stand
you street-corner, main-door,
elevator, quad-center,
sidewalk-junction,
come-hear-my-function
preachers. I applaud
your drive to enliven
a crowd with your messages,
your guts to light fire under
butts and say what’s what.
But your words are falling
on deaf ears because
what you’re touting
sounds like bullshit spouting
from a broken fountain
of better-luck-next-time
prime rib ad-lib
that ain’t going nowhere fast.
I have places to go,
people to meet,
and a whole lot of my own
speeches incomplete
because I decided that
undivided attention
goes nowhere if you don’t
have a plan of action.

Please…
Stop complaining…

I have better things to do
than listen to you whine
about your god and his glory
in some grandiose
adventure story
that’s really about intolerance
and inequality,
and an allegiance
to cover your ass
when you decide to kill
en masse and bloody
the grass of history.
I am not too keen
on the scene of
give-me-some-money-and-
we’ll-pray-for-you-honey
miracles or the shade betrayal
of friends because
they don’t call their god
by your god’s name,
god forbid
your religion
be the one to blame.

Please…
Stop complaining…

I have better things to do
than listen to you whine
about two people
loving and giving
and sharing and living
and supporting each other,
being all wrong and against
the order of life
because they’re homo
and not hetero
in the scheme you deem
the be-all end-all
of humanity.
I’d claim insanity
if I were you
because the vanity
of your vision proves
you’re sitting
too close to the mirror
to see the love
that deigns to shove
against your melting block
of ice age idea.

Please…
Stop complaining…

I have better things to do
than listen to you whine
about a woman deciding
what’s best for her
without stopping to confer
with your delusional thoughts
of grandeur.
I refuse to let you choose
to imprison her
in three-fourths a year
of non-volunteer incubation,
no kind of foundation
to base the creation
of a life-supporting society,
until the day
you curb the perturbance
of sperm-donating oops!-ters
who with agility
shrug the responsibility
of this fertility,
and find a route
for men to bear the doubt
of carrying this thing out.

Please…
Stop complaining...

So you’ve established your
place in the world,
but your world is not
our world and I want to
-knock, knock, knock-
welcome you
to the real world.
Excuse me
for not standing up in ovation
because your statements
don’t hold up in the line-up
of listenable material
worthy of admiration.
I am not sorry
for my lack of interest
in listening to you
try to explain that 2 plus 2
does not equal five,
because it actually does
when you synergize,
so excuse you and your talk
and your self-righteous walk,
but I have things to do.


© Hannah Walleser

Good and Evil were at recess, so while Justice
was eating lunch at the corner café,
I picked up her blindfold from the jury box
and tightened its objectivity about my eyes.

I held her double-edged sword in my right hand,
dangled the chain of scales from my left,
and stepped into the regal pose of the law
I had seen her take on many an occasion.

How embarrassing her complacent gaze
when the blindfold fell off,
the way the scales clanged to the floor
and the sword razed my calf
filling my nostrils with the red sting of iron.


© Hannah Walleser

All you have to do is listen to the way a woman
sometimes rants to her friends about all the things
her husband does wrong while he waits on the side
holding her purse and biting his tongue

and you will know why the men in science
fiction movies who land their spaceships here
are not pictured tumbling out with a football
or wiping rocket grease off bulging biceps,

why they are always huddled behind a messenger
with palms lifted, their mouths set in anticipation,
their genitals retracted into a smooth elastic skin.


© Hannah Walleser

My granny used to speed skate on the marble clouds
of lake ice in Michigan. Her pine forest backyard
was perfect for blueberries and bears to course
through alongside enough tales of Paul Bunyan a landfill
couldn’t swallow them. She used her piece of the pie
to attend nursing school and passed with passion, not luck.

She once dated JFK, and patted the Enola Gay for luck
before it took off to deliver the mushroom clouds.
Years later she taught me to make her UP blueberry pie
in Wisconsin, and we fed the birds bread in the backyard.
Her wedding dress, now since living in a landfill,
was sewn out of Japanese parachute silk, of course

homemade, like her calligraphies that course
along her wedding program. It was some luck
that we salvaged the paper from ending up in the landfill
the winter the washer malfunctioned and invisible clouds
poured rain downstairs. We had to use the backyard
to sort out the basement’s treasures into a lopsided pie

of melted photographs, squishy sideboards, rusted pie
tins, and unmendable clothes. Through the course
of a thousand trips to the dumpster behind the backyard
we cleaned up the memories. The only luck
we had consisted of paper towels to soak up the clouds
of moisture that molded in puddles. Maybe the landfill

had a special place for broken Susie Smart: a landfill
hospital for easy bake ovens that burned the pie
and were retired to the basement after too many clouds
of char wafted out. We found sketches from the art course
that she took at a college women’s week, and as luck
would have it, the Xmas decorations evaded the backyard

too. The basement door opened onto the backyard
the way her house design planned, just beside the landfill
drop point for clothes at the mangle iron. Maybe luck
kept the nosy Polack neighbors away when the pizza pie
called us inside to eat. The clown makeup, of course,
disintegrated, and the cotton crèche set clouds

matted down in the backyard pile. Her pumpkin pie
and other recipes survived the landfill, in due course
of family memory, a good luck sign to taunt the clouds.


© Hannah Walleser

You were trained in Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation:
A horde of kids jumped off the bus and jostled for attention,
First you assess the situation; look around and make sure
excited to have a weekend away from their parents’ control.
there is no immediate danger for the victim or for yourself.
You split them into groups by age and sex, put a check

Then approach the victim and tap their shoulder to check
next to their names on a clipboard. A few needed resuscitation
for consciousness. Have someone call 911 and situate yourself
from the long bus ride, a little sugar to keep their attention.
next to the victim. Tilt the head back, being careful to control
There was a big difference in ages, but you weren’t too sure

the movement, and look, listen, and feel to be sure
who’d been through more. They looked around to check
of any breathing or a pulse. Seal your mouths and control
which group their friends were in. A quick resuscitation
two breaths into their lungs. You need to pay attention
of order pulled them into various activities. You patted yourself

to whether they go in. If there is no pulse, calm yourself
on the back for your keen organizational skills, sure
and proceed to chest compressions. Focus your attention
the week would be a breeze. You glanced at each check
on your hands, locked on their chest. This resuscitation
on their med sheets and found out that your ability to control

effort depends on thirty compressions you control
these kids would make or break their week. You kept to yourself
1 ½ - 2 inches downward. You cycle the resuscitation
the details of who came from a family of abuse, sure
with two breaths (but with the new rules you don’t check
everyone already knew, but you wanted to prevent the wrong attention

for a pulse every 2 minutes anymore). Your attention
for those with depression or parents with drug or alcohol control
stays on the cycle until help arrives, EMS check
issues. The bullying, threats, and fights you would deal with yourself,
in and take over, or you can’t continue. Make sure
unless someone wrote a suicide note this year. The resuscitation

your attention is on the status of the victim and yourself.
of childhood under control was the goal for the week, for sure.

But what box do you check when they don’t respond to resuscitation?


© Hannah Walleser

She didn’t need balls
to catch one, or to run from base
to base like you guys
thought. The second
time she wore the uniform
you knew she wouldn’t drop out.

You couldn’t figure that out,
or how the balls
she threw made it the uniform
distance to the base.
She pushed every second
to prove to you guys

that she was one of the guys
on the field. But out
there you didn’t give her a second
thought, threw the balls
past her to a different base.
The orange-striped uniform

didn't look too uniform
on her chest, and you guys
made bets for which base
you could get to without
a knee to your balls
to knock you down for a second.

She played second
without a cup in the uniform
to protect her from stray balls
like you guys
had to wear, and she stuck out
her ponytail at the base

of her cap. But every base
she rounded was a second
too late, every strike-out
a shame to the uniform;
of course none of the guys
dropped that many balls.

She finished out the season and turned in the uniform.
The second summer came, but she didn’t want the guys
to base their comments again on whether she had balls.


© Hannah Walleser

8th

We were taking a test,
something stupid like math
or German maybe,
and the teacher walks out.
I’m concentrating pretty hard
but Joe reaches in his pocket,
pulls out this rubber ball
and starts bouncing it.
It’s quiet but it annoys me,
and then one bounce
sends it flying over the half-wall
into the principal’s office.
Everybody looks up then
and Joe zips on over to the window,
opens it and jumps out.
Well of course the principal
rounds the corner
and wants to know
whose rubber ball this is,
but nobody says anything.
And here comes Joe
in from the hallway,
says he was in the bathroom.
Brilliant.


2 ½, 40

I headed out on the river
with Hannah in tow
on the ice fishing shack.
Nancy had her bundled up
in scarves and sweaters
and snow pants.
We hiked out around
the bend over there
and I drilled a couple holes.
I gave her the scoop
to keep the ice out
and we talked.
Ten hours later
we went back home.
She’d just been potty trained.
and was embarrassed
that she’d had to pee her pants
because it was too cold.
Even Nancy couldn’t
settle her down.
She’s only two.
It was good to spend
some time together
before we can’t.


2008

Sue saw a spirit
in the pew next to us.
He had brown hair
and a blue checkered shirt.
After Mass Mom showed
her an Easter picture
when we were babies.
The same man stands,
arm around our mom.
We talk about this
on the porch steps
of the Legion Hall.
The kick to an x-ray
bounces down from
the boys at karate practice.
Sue pokes her head up
the staircase ready
to say something smart.
She stops mid-step
and hurries back over.
There are people
dressed up for dancing
in that stairwell
who know they’re dead.


5¢

There used to be a school
here in Harpers, you know;
that’s what the gym’s from.
There were two stores,
and the river business
and, well, there was more.
Oh, this town
was just a hoppin’.
Every Saturday night
there'd be a dance
up in the Legion;
‘course that’s where we
store the old drums now
for Memorial Day.
Hell yes, this place
was something, I tell you.
We’d get all done up
and go out together.
Now anybody ever does
is meet up for coffee,
but I s’pose that’s
all we can do now
that we’re old
and not too pretty, hey?


© Hannah Walleser

she sits on a lunchroom bench
. dips a spoon in pudding
he looks over
. catches her eye


she takes a smooth mouthful
. twists it upside-down
he forgets
. what he was saying


she half closes her eyes
. opens them full back at him
he knows
. what that look is


she lets the tip sit at her lips
. swallows
he smiles
. walks over


© Hannah Walleser

“Back then even the good girls got dizzy”
DIZZY GIRLS IN THE SIXTIES – Gary Soto


We left the avisos of our madres españolas in our house shoes,
Thoughts of early billetes and bottles of agua faded,
And we nearly skipped west along the calles.

We went to Trujillo on the morning autobús,
Dragged around bocadillos of jamón and oranges
And sipped from cans with nickel-thick bottoms.

We took bites out of the ripe queso, the fuzzy manzanas,
The tortilla española that is not made with flour,
And threw the rest away in a plastic bag.

We sat on pitted concrete and fished out our dulces,
Drank milk-juice from the aluminum-insided cartons,
And its sabor paraíso escaped in dribbles with our laughter.

We modeled like true turistas around the square’s tiendas
While Pizarro sat like a patron saint atop his caballo,
And pigeons circled his head to drop a white crown.

We evaded guides that spouted moreno history like faucets,
Tried on the acento of stone walls with glass barbed wire,
And pulled our necks around every corner with a good vista.

We discussed the trabajo for class and headed back east,
Digested the vino and the cultura as the spotted land passed,
And then thinned out in parejas for the walk home.


© Hannah Walleser

Four years ago
I slipped on a nightie
and lay down
next to a bronzed youth.
I shut my eyes
that were so heavy
with purple crescents,
as if to sleep.
Something curled up
like a whisper
by my bare feet
and breathed heavy.
When I tucked my knees
like a small child,
it resettled
in my arms.
Slivers of moon
shifted silent
beneath the curtains,
my back oval
as an egg.
I thought of us
in limbo
the last months,
and that murmur
pressed deeper
into my chest
and whined.
A minute more,
and it blinked
and suffocated
at my breast.
To that I wept
and slid
away from the stud boy,
with the thing
doubled over at my ribs
like a voice
cracking.


© Hannah Walleser

Things accumulated at our house,
the house of the brats,
three redheaded kids,
things like bats.

Sometimes
we noticed a dark spot on the ceiling
not quite the right shape
to be a knot in the wood.

When we were little
Mom doled out the butterfly nets.
We shrieked in terror and excitement
and jumped when it did.

I bet she was just glad
we were amused
and that she didn’t have to catch it
on her own.

How absurd to see
pajama-ed kids
chasing after a squeaking nightmare
like it really was a butterfly.

The flapping thing
ended up outside on the porch
and Hans Joseph and I back inside
heaved shut the door.

John Henry with his hammer
whacked that thing,
whooped and hollered like a madman
‘til it was flat.

Mom loaded it up
on the tulip-planting shovel
and flung it over the road
to the dead corn field.

The four of us
then settled back on the sofa
in the living room
in peace.


© Hannah Walleser

I went to two of the readings during the Wildness Symposium: Mosaic Finding Beauty in a Broken World with Terry Tempest Williams on Saturday and Blood Dazzler with Patricia Smith on Sunday.

Terry Tempest Williams opened with the theme word empathy. She read a letter from a fellow writer to her friend whose 27 yr old daughter had committed suicide this week. The most striking words I remember are “Sing… sing silent if you must, for finally, there are no words.” Then she began reading excerpts from her book, about hearing the word mosaic when her heart was searching for guidance, apprenticing in Italy the trade of mosaics, and working with her hands to form something new out of something broken. She read some and spoke some, a very balanced and meaningful switch between the two forms of sharing and explaining her experience.

There were three major topics: prairie dogs of Utah and how, if they disappear, who will cry for the rain; the survivors of the Genocide in Rwanda and finding a way to properly memorialize and provide burial for the murdered families; and her “adopted” son Louie. In one passage Louie, her translator while in Rwanda, tried to describe what it was like to interpret; he said it was more than words, something like creating a space for two hungers for understanding to come together. Another powerful insight was that he noticed the children in the streets, without opportunity, but waiting to be transformed. She very easily tied everything into the meanings mosaic and empathy.

Patricia Smith opened her reading with a poem about her 6th grade class from Miami Dade County, Florida; their straightforward knowing that they each know someone who’s dead, and their eagerness to learn how to write poetry that somehow can help them with the losses. She then read a more lighthearted poem about her and a friend discovering the Louvre in all their American-ness. Then she read from her book about Hurricane Katrina. She also had three main themes: the personification of Katrina, slowly learning her body and quickly becoming a terrific woman; the dog Luther B; and some of the victims of the storm including the 34 nursing home residents.

She read poem after poem with a minimum of explanation in between. What I like best is that she really embodied her poems and their individual narrators and she really performed them like they were alive. She gave a voice to the devastation so that people can begin to make themselves aware of the events. By imaging these real people, developing their hell through believable characters she allows readers and listeners to feel a sliver of truth that wasn’t shown through the media.

I.

The twin isn’t here this year, had some trouble at school so their mama wouldn’t let him come.
But the other one’s here with his I’m-thirteen-I-do-what-I-want attitude and a devious grin
that would melt your heart - if you couldn’t see what was hiding behind his back.
He’s the leader ‘cause he’s the oldest and if it weren’t for that it would be for his looks
that the girls won’t stop giggling over so he plays them up, struts like the pimp of kings.
So on the one hand you’re grateful that once he listens they all listen, but on the other hand
you're damned when he wants to prove it and throws a little man-tantrum for good measure.
He starts the fists to fighting, but wants you to stop them before he might get hurt,
makes you laugh or roll your eyes when all you want to do is kick his adolescent ass.
When he’s not too busy being tough enough he’ll volunteer to be somebody’s buddy
for a bathroom break, and you say okay but secretly you watch him as they walk away,
decode his pat on the other boy’s back, gauge which smartass look is on his face,
track the time they spend behind the door and finally let your calves ease to parade rest
when they trounce out a minute later and no one’s scared and no one’s guilty this time.


II.

The next-to-littlest one
is real cute.
Bony arms
stick out his tshirt;
bruises and scrapes
map his skin
like war paint.
He shies at first,
but does what you say
when you say it,
a mini G.I.
John Doe
with two front teeth
missing.
He gives anything
a whirl
and won’t shutup
once you listen.
A high five
is all he needs
to make his day.
He follows you
like you’re his
sugar high,
so ready
to take your word
like you mean it.


III.

He’s pudgy and freckled and sweet
when the meds win the day,
but when the anger focuses for him
he just snaps like a guitar string,
can only see the toreador’s cape.
He says he’s sorry
and cries on your shoulder
later when you talk about ways
to keep his cool, but the rage that builds up
has more experience
than the calm.
He smiles at the dirt stain
until his demons take over.


© Hannah Walleser

it made, your soul collapsing?
Was the sound ash?

The sound was ash,
smothering like a dirt-covered fire
in feverous July.

In feverous July,
your tear-glazed eyes
saw him.

See him,
bubbling over now with wrath
but sincere in youth.

Sincere in his youth,
two small hands squeezed life.
The sound was ash.

The sound was ash.
And only you, blue,
and deadened grass felt it.

Deadened grass felt it
feathering down over shattered flesh.
Shock struck its cadence.

Shock struck its cadence
and blacked out the taste
from the cruelty of consciousness.

From the cruelty of consciousness,
comes the sound of ash,
squeezed life perverting youth,
the soul collapsing and finally acknowledging

him

bubbling over now with wrath.


© Hannah Walleser

I think that a writer’s voice comes through in whatever they write, even in their first writings. I realize that it won’t “magically burst forth”, but I don’t think the term “find your voice” works. It’s already there; maybe “connect” would work better. However, I think it grows and develops and becomes much more visible the more they write and read and experiment.

Persona poems as shapeshifting… It’s hard to write poetry from another point of view. I’m kind of stuck in the writing as related to autobiography, something I should work on to stretch my abilities and look at things from other points of view.

I think I’ll try extending a metaphor throughout a poem instead of just using a line of comparison. It sounds pretty challenging having to keep both the literal and metaphorical meanings visible to the reader. It definitely will help to make a list of the vocabulary of the image first.

I liked the line about similes singing because sometimes a phrase just works on its own because of how it sounds, not just for how it makes a surprising connection to the subject.

I realize that using figurative language takes practice, and patience, but it’s often hard for me to revise poetry because I don’t want to mess with the emotion I wrote down in the first place. When I do decide to keep working though, it’s a thrill to see where the poem goes.

I’m not really sure what else a memory could be other than an image, whether it’s visual, tactile, or whatever sense that holds it.

I like the line about writing something so real the reader lives it too. I think that would be a good exercise for me, to make a poem an experience in itself rather than an account about an experience. I’d like to push myself into using more detail, especially past the notion that a lot of detail just covers up the poem. There must be some middle ground.

“you are gone into what is not fear or joy/ But a whirling of sunlight and water and air full of shining dust/ That takes you, a dream that is not of you but will let you/ Into itself if you love enough”

The part of the poem that’s quoted is a great example of using an image to pull the reader into the action. I was able to see myself being sucked into the grains and living that moment of whirlpool action.

Milky, moldy tendrils settle in together
While the cricket plays its violin somewhere beneath your grandmother’s hutch.
A creepy little millipede wearing boots tap- tap- tap- dances along the wall
And I can’t help but smile at the smoke pouring out the window,
The boxelder bug I squashed last fall still with one crooked leg crossed over the other
collecting dust and stray hairs.
A babydoll sits in the corner reading tapestries from the society page
Where the bobby pins from my hairdo on Friday play pick-up stix.
The air is hot but it’s not a sweltering, humid heat;
It’s more like a spice being thrown casually along a dry breeze.
A storm is coming.


© Hannah Walleser

I’ve never thought of writing a poem first in prose and then breaking it up into lines. I like to use the lines while I’m creating my thoughts on the page. Sometimes I rearrange and change the lines, but they’re always there. I like the idea of the words as bricks to work with – it makes the ideas more tactile.

It makes sense that the rhythm of the words helps create the mood of the poem, but thinking of it in comparison to the way music is written is something new. A great musician knows so much more about the piece of music even before they start playing the notes. They have background information about the style of the piece, when it was written, who composed it, etc. And once they delve into the written notation they get more clues from the author about style and dynamic and mood.

That’s hard to compete with when writing with words. You can never know how a reader will choose to read the poem. It’s a lot of work to make my thoughts try to read clearly.

Purple and pink and white,
squiggly like one of those paintings where the author
smears on colors
thick as tomato paste, left to streak
down in the rain.
Just not straight,
and not smooth,
and not pretty anymore.
Puckered and wrinkled and pulled taut
a few too many times
trying to hold myself in.
Fine and silky like sour milk dribbling from the chin;
slightly raised, slightly sunken.
Ruts or watermarks maybe
of a growing self,
an inside pushing too fast against the
slow elasticity
that had to find ways to
keep up.

Discolored,
much as those other threads of my surface,
but these have stories
to explain themselves.
One from a knife,
another from another knife,
and that other one from a knife as well.
These had to tear open before they could heal,
which they did
eventually;
first crusty with a scab and then
after peeling back layer after layer after layer
a few thin, nearly see-through patches
became permanent.
Gouges and scrapes of
carelessness and accidents
sealed up behind welds
almost invisibly
holding the torn seams together.


© Hannah Walleser

I’ve heard that over and over, write about what you know. But I always want to go find something better, something more moving, something the reader has to pay attention to. And then when I write that way, it’s never really satisfying. When I do take the advice and write about what I know the writing flows more easily and naturally and I’m usually a lot more taken with the end result. And it’s also easier to take criticism because when I know the subject so well I know a lot more alternatives to how to revise it.

"didn't see that one coming"

short little 2 year old with the same flaming red hair
mouth puckered
my hands dropped as that sound popped from her mouth
yelling at me a little
the feel of her hand not there


© Hannah Walleser