Tag: first

Two Poems by Nancy Huggett

~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

Lunar New Year, Pagoda Sangha

In the drift of winter,
going is the gift. To leave
this cobbled house of needs,
wrap the woolen scarf
around my mouth and nose,
breathe the mentholated
mist of my undoing. To walk
the miles, skaters scratching
freedom into ice with cursive blades
while I plod, wondering if
this night will hold me
in the way that I desire. To be
set free in some way. Grateful

that the bell rang true.
That I did not cough.
That my New Year’s fortune
was divined with sticks that set me
on my path. That when I emerge,
the streets are plowed,
the night is clear, the stars
are out. That I look up.

* 

My First Last
People once believed that the last image seen before death was recorded on the retina.

This might be your last pap smear,
my doctor proclaims as she bends
the wand light, props open the folds
of my vagina with the cold metal speculum,
and peers at my fleshy parts. Looks good!
Just like a cervix should in someone your age.
I don’t ask for a mirror or a more nuanced
description, but imagine the wrinkled portal
to the place where my daughter lived for a while
30-odd years ago. No other tenants. No regrets.
Is this how it starts then, the end my days?
Small good-byes and losses. My first last.

Should I buy cupcakes, confetti?
Throw a party? Invite neighbours
and friends? I remember driving my father
to his golf club at the foot of Mount Bruno
near the end of his days. Could see
in his eyes, as he looked out across
the autumn greens, not sorrow,
but a gathering, as if to imprint this vista
on his retina to take with him forever.

What will I take? This slice of river—
how it bends at the bottom of our street
then runs straight to the Kichi Zibi,
my daughter’s head thrown back in laughter,
my husband’s gentle hands, this earth that
has held me, will hold me when I’m done.

*

Nancy Huggett is a settler descendant who writes and caregives on the unceded Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation (Ottawa, Canada). Published in Event, Poetry Northwest, SWIMM, and Whale Road Review, she’s won some awards (RBC PEN Canada 2024 New Voices Award) and a gazillion rejections. She keeps writing.

Ode For Firsts by Jaiden Geolingo

~ ONE ART ~ Leave a comment

Ode For Firsts

We are in the third act.
We are observing each other’s
curvature. We are breathing
down each other’s neck
like a needy fanblade. Starting the day
with socks on the ground,
I wanted more and I realize now that there’s only a dead leaf
in the picture. Here is your catechism
where the only rule is releasing
the metaphorical fire hydrant.
I’ve let go of things,
a lacuna in the catalog of the body.
So, given that, this must be history in clockwork—
I parcel you up like an heirloom, you divine thing.
Today, I’ll be selfish. You’ll see me in a strange display.
You will not stay with me for a while.

*

Jaiden Geolingo is a Pinoy writer based in Georgia, United States, and the author of How to Migrate Ghosts (kith books, 2025). A finalist for the Georgia Poet Laureate’s Prize and a 2025 National YoungArts Winner in Poetry, his writing appears or is forthcoming in diode poetry journal, The Shore, The Tupelo Quarterly, Writers Digest, and elsewhere. Jaiden is the editor-in-chief of Hominum Journal and a Best of the Net nominee. He is currently working on his second manuscript titled Hymnal of Hourglasses.

Three Poems by M.L. Hedison

~ ONE ART ~ 6 Comments

Everyone knows sex is for men

my aunt said at eighty two—
between bites of quiche, sips of tea.
My young cousins and I stared

at our plates, shifted in our seats.
Chaste for thirty years
after her husband died, she put

sex on the table. Family matriarch
ready to tell all. One sexual partner
her entire life. A mercurial man,

moody, dark – quick with a bark.
Left with three boys to raise alone,
she praised him—love story

of her life. She wore slippers,
better to walk on eggshells.
Held her tongue. Unable to say

what gave her pleasure. This spot,
not there, here yes, right there.
Sex more duty than desire.

Repetitive like laundry.
As she spoke to us, oxygen
finally filled her lungs.

*

SILENT NIGHT

There are no airport runs
no one coming home to us.
Drive of wonder, glow of lights—

each year, we carry the biggest
tree into the house. Whiff of pine
on my hands, perfume.

Fills the space where kids
should be. Blinking color, angels
on their knees, amaryllis

about to burst. The image,
my three brothers and me,
five in the morning.

Huddled in one bedroom.
Oldest can tell time, still too early.
My father’s firm hand against the wall.

Why can’t you be like you were,
last treasure, a tangerine
in the toe of my stocking.

*

FOR FLORENCE

The cold bit off my fingers the day I buried you.
Jackhammer opened the earth.
Slabs of dirt to welcome you.
Not sun or birds or green pillow to kneel on.

This is when I turned solid,
fire hose in winter.
Nylon stockings covered my feet.
Your warm glow given at birth –
now a thin muslin shroud, no blanket.

A dull ache of clouds shivered with damp.
My head bowed to cut the wind.
Priest’s vestments blew black in snow.
I can’t leave you in the cold.

Grief still has me on my back,
boot at my throat.
I take in the plants at night so they don’t die.
I can’t remember your hands.

*

M.L. Hedison is an emerging poet based in the coastal town of Wakefield, R.I. She is a former advertising creative director and writer. Her work explores themes of absence, longing, and her Armenian family through lyrical verse. She has been writing poetry for three years and continues to study with Jennifer Franklin, Martha Collins and Wyn Cooper. M.L. is so grateful to have her work published for the first time in ONE ART.