Bending Toward Hope
A woman I’ve never met before—
a stranger, but also, soon,
a confidante—starts by telling
me she has good luck.
Before sharing her story, of cancer
and its recurrence, she needs
to establish this baseline truth
to remind herself,
and so I know to listen
with an ear bent toward hope.
*
Ann E. Wallace is Poet Laureate Emeritus of Jersey City, New Jersey and host of The WildStory: A Podcast of Poetry and Plants. She is the author of Keeping Room (forthcoming from Nixes Mate), Days of Grace and Silence: A Chronicle of COVID’s Long Haul (Kelsay Books) and Counting by Sevens (Main Street Rag). She is online at AnnWallacePhD.com and on Instagram @annwallace409.
