Molly Bloom 23
  • MOLLY BLOOM 23
  • Alasdair Paterson
  • Claire Crowther
  • Robert Vas Dias
  • Daragh Breen
  • Cordelia Hanemann
  • Paul Rossiter
  • David Rushmer
  • Joanna Nissel
  • Tess Jolly
  • Mark Russell
  • David Berridge
  • Howie Good
  • Robert Hampson
  • Steve Spence
  • Tony Beyer
  • ----------
  • Previously in Molly Bloom
  • Live readings
  • Submissions
  • Editor
  • MOLLY BLOOM 23
  • Alasdair Paterson
  • Claire Crowther
  • Robert Vas Dias
  • Daragh Breen
  • Cordelia Hanemann
  • Paul Rossiter
  • David Rushmer
  • Joanna Nissel
  • Tess Jolly
  • Mark Russell
  • David Berridge
  • Howie Good
  • Robert Hampson
  • Steve Spence
  • Tony Beyer
  • ----------
  • Previously in Molly Bloom
  • Live readings
  • Submissions
  • Editor
  Molly Bloom 23

Cordelia Hanemann

demolition
 
the façade is black with rain
by afternoon      the crushing ball
will have done its work
the arm of the yellow-coated
backhoe      rearing its metal
maw      removing all remains
 
ghosts of walls still streak
the sodden sky     phantom
lives swirl past      like wisps
of smoky fog     accumulate
in piles of dust      a vanishing art
 
the walls are down     and
              we must live still
surely        we can live anywhere
              if we must     as we flee
disasters we have made
              removed from harvest
              removed from work              
our limited world      several sizes
too small     and getting smaller
 
we survive now     a liminal space
              between what has been
                            and what will be
we count our unlucky dead
              as we pick our way through
              the rubble      of what is left
salvage a few stones      sticks of wood
fragrance of breads     another kind
              of ghost      in eerie streets




the map
 
map of a face
beyond the lines
of longitude and latitude
crisscrossing trajectories
so many journeys like
the contrails of jets across
a blue-gray sky
the fabric of desire
 
callus of hand
at the wheel follows
the arc of sun
compass rose of hope
desire the felt
what can be seen
 
a string of pelicans
steel-gray skimming
the horizon of ocean
its silver line against
sky on fire
 
the world strays
wounds fester beneath
worn fabric
the shoe soles
barely
shoe soles
 
but the face stays
lips having kissed
hands having touched
feet having walked
body without rest
 
that map knows nothing
that the face does not
searching eyes squint
into the sunset as though
into history and the moment
 
hands unsteady at the helm
navigate the boat
home     homing in to a shore
unseen              
© Copyright Cordelia Hanemann​​ 2020

Cordelia Hanemann is currently a practising writer and artist in Raleigh, North Carolina. She has published in numerous journals including Turtle Island Quarterly, Connecticut River Review, Dual Coast Magazine, and Laurel Review; anthologies The Well-Versed Reader, Heron Clan and Kakalak and in her own chapbook, Through a Glass Darkly. Her poem, "photo-op" was a finalist in the Poems of Resistance competition at Sable Press and her poem "Cezanne's Apples" was nominated for a Pushcart. Recently the featured poet for Negative Capability Press and The Alexandria Quarterly, she is now working on a first novel, about her roots in Cajun Louisiana.
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