Tag: Emily Lake Hansen

Bird by Emily Lake Hansen

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Bird

What does the name for it matter?
It was just a bird, a giant bird,
suddenly landing on the white sand
and then, as if its occasion were both
remarkable and unremarkable,
it paraded alongside the waves,
a small fish in its beak, dinner
and prize. If you’re going
to photograph me, it lifted its knee
like a rockette, at least get my good
side. Though what side of something
so graceful, so momentary could be
bad? I stood with the crowd,
beachgoers with camera phones
and to-go margaritas. We each
wanted to capture it – the delicacy
of feathers, the brevity of joy, earth
before its collapse. What if
I never see this bird again?
So we name it: heron
its supermodel neck, its body
framed on stilts, and yet
capable of flight, of leaving,
and, if we’re lucky, of coming back.

*

Emily Lake Hansen (she/her) is the author of Home and Other Duty Stations (Kelsay Books) and the chapbook The Way the Body Had to Travel (dancing girl press). Her poetry has appeared in 32 Poems, Hobart, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Atticus Review, and the Shore among others. The recipient of the 2022 Longleaf Poetry Fellowship, she lives in Atlanta where she is a PhD student at Georgia State University and an instructor of English at Agnes Scott College.

Two Poems by Emily Lake Hansen

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Change of Address

It was raining the night I left the base,
my belongings shoved in the back
of a green pick-up, everything wet.
At 16, I hadn’t thought of a tarp.
I put trash bags full of clothes on top
of the mattress, blocked the stereo buttons
with a pillow so they might still work
when I got to my mom’s across town.

When the truck pulled away from the house,
the headlights cutting diamonds onto the road,
I looked back thinking I might see my father,
but that night he never left his room. And after
that night, I never came back. The house

might as well have been empty.

*

The Last Birthday Party

Six days after the towers fell,
fifteen candles on a box strawberry cake

at my boyfriend’s house because no guests —
none at all — were allowed that week on base.

We hadn’t been careful enough
to let the cake cool. At least it wasn’t

her sweet sixteen, my boyfriend’s mother said,
the pink frosting a mess on her plate.

*

Emily Lake Hansen (she/her) is the author of Home and Other Duty Stations (Kelsay Books) and the chapbook The Way the Body Had to Travel (dancing girl press). Her poetry has appeared in 32 Poems, Hobart, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Atticus Review, and the Shore among others. The recipient of the 2022 Longleaf Poetry Fellowship, she lives in Atlanta where she is a PhD student at Georgia State University and an instructor of English at Agnes Scott College.