Anne Hohenstein participated in the fall 2010 advanced poetry workshop at the New York State Writers Institute, led by Rebecca Wolff. Anne lives near the Hudson River, practices law in Albany and has published before, most recently in The Lyon Review. She writes that, "The workshop brought necessary internal and external focus" and offers here "a short poem, a piece well-corrected in the seminar."
Nights Like This Kill Me
Can't sleep for all this sleeping
all this quiet, without evident damage
It isn't possible, or safe
Too many bridges, too many
never-to-returns
but never enough to keep me
from jumping
letting my softening body bang
against sandy same-day logs floating with me
poking stubs tangle my dangling arms, my leftover legs
snarl my hair, pointing
to all I've left behind
golden flesh of my children
as yet unaware their mother
went to save a wounded bird
"Are you a birdy, am I a birdy?"
and saved herself in concrete water
"Good bye to our never mommy, we will come soon
leaving our never life"
Whose heart does not crack to contemplate this?
