by Morgan Hamill

this is not // what I’d hoped // for a sudden lack of limb
feet hot, thick // in a summer basement // play about a girl  

time-traveling during // her own mastectomy just prior // to her time
of death.  // This is not // what she’d planned

for, this // “disfigurement,” this // time-traveling to speak
with the creator // (who is also missing // a breast) almost dead

but still wanting // a bra that fits—her. And me // my shoes too small, feet too
big, I am able // to time travel but not able // to get up and walk

out; I have nothing // to say except: I had no idea // that it would be this hard,
this good to live. I // thought I could starve // submission itself, suspected

my gratitude cost more // than I could afford. Now // I want to know: can we
spend ourselves // on gratitude, // spend gratitude all at once,

make desire // beget warmth of the kind // when we are together
at a play // in the dark, limbs half- // intertwined with pain  

                                                                                                    onstage before us?

 

 

---

 

Morgan Hamill is a disabled poet and MA/PhD student in English Literature at Penn State-University Park, where she has been awarded a McCourtney Family Distinguished Graduate Fellowship. In 2019, she was a poetry semi-finalist in Nimrod’s Francine Ringold Awards for Emerging Writers. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Cimarron Review, Copper Nickel, Georgia Review, The Journal, and The Southern Review.