Constance Hansen
Constance Hansen is the Assistant Managing Editor of Poetry Northwest. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Washington. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in: Rhino Poetry, Four Way Review, Harvard Review Online, Southern Humanities Review, Cimarron Review, The Idaho Review, Vallum, On the Seawall, Northwest Review, Mercury Firs, River Mouth Review, Psaltery & Lyre, EcoTheo Review, Volume Poetry, and elsewhere. She lives in Seattle, where she was born and raised.
About Time
The first first trimester,
I could only abide
cornflakes & mapo tofu.
Nothingness & numbing peppers.
The second second trimester,
a miscommunication among cells
took place in the guts
of my father.
My oblivion baby
began in a weeper’s womb.
I was a woman wiping vomit
off a maternity pantsuit.
Not mine at the time.
Too many fries for my firstborn
at the election party
where we watched Tetris
pieces fall blue,
red, red, red, red.
Faces fell through
the tavern window—
me on the wet side,
the dark side, fishing a howler
in doll shoes from puddles.
November in Seattle—
where it’s well after midnight
by happy hour. No matter
how many times he asked,
I said yes, Leonard Cohen,
I do want it darker,
but the Winter Solstice
spat me back out.
Dianthus heralded
baby & one of her
ancestral names,
Diantha, the other,
Ruth, presaged
anticipatory grief.
We got the black
out curtains back out.
I was awake, alone
at last in the quiet
of a sleeping pack.
I was reading Bonhoeffer
when my father
called at 10pm the day
after he learned
(but the first day he learned
to let his family down).
Lesions, imaged.
Lesions on his pancreas,
stomach, lungs.
Biopsy scheduled.
I did not sleep
for two years
and would have then slept
for two had I my way.
Time is planetary.
On Titan,
seasons last for earth-years.
There was no third third trimester.
My final child
was all the grief
I’d ever owned
but never known.
What Were You Doing the Moment of the First Mutation?
Making the guest bed for strangers
Checking your hair for spiders
Unbuckling my lunch box
Nuking your coffee
Rubbing green Xerox light from your eyes
Laughing against a doorframe
Falling asleep with the lamp on
Slipping a book into a friend’s milk box
Lowering your voice into the phone
Laying hands on your reading glasses
Dreaming without sleeping
Sloughing hearts
Hanging stars
Signing Mary Ann
Sleeping without dreaming
Peeling a tangerine
Listening for the garage door
Asking the butcher for more
Dreaming an irretrievable dream
Sliding into the woods through the slush
Saving your place in a mystery