Melissa
Hotchkiss is co-director of the Barrow Street Reading Series and is on the
editorial board of the poetry journal Barrow Street. Her work has appeared or is
forthcoming in the Marlboro Review and Four Way Reader #2. She lives in NYC.
The Gnaw and Echo of the Aircraft
Gnaw and echo of the aircraft long in my ear
After your departure
The airport, sick ward
Wheelchairs empty in the corner
The doors whoosh to each side under the red exit sign
I am entering winter and know the tired ride home
The curves in the road, the pothole past the fat tin mailbox
Eight miles away
You are already gone
And I am what they call strong
I am what
They call competent
But nothing seems enough to stop the clinging to this body
You do so well in it definitive morning even not wanting kisses
What is it—the dream about the pearls
Recurring, bearing round gifts
Wrapped in strands
I do not remember how it unraveled
White, pure, falling
Uncontrollably falling
As if it were me
A child who might yank a necklace
From its mother’s breast
Taking what is already taken
As if it were me who could turn such a poison into stone
Melissa
Hotchkiss is co-director of the Barrow Street Reading Series and is on the
editorial board of the poetry journal Barrow Street. Her work has appeared or is
forthcoming in the Marlboro Review and Four Way Reader #2. She lives in NYC. 