A Half-Step From Salvation
Our house was the house of mourning.
—Mary Shelley
we can’t find
the end
of this
empty road
red dirt & gravel
so dark so green & new
in the distance
a newborn cries
& we don’t turn our heads
not even to feign interest
right there
is a bridge
a deep gash in the middle
where there was once
togetherness
to be whole is to be
unfleshed unburdened
under—
how many of us
can claim our own
gaped mouths
we come here
to remind ourselves:
we’re still alive
—something complete
& entirely different
a warped doorframe
paint crackled by sunlight
let’s start at the beginning
nothing is ever completely
unmarred
HANNAH V WARREN is the author of Slaughterhouse for Old Wives Tales (Sundress, Winter 2023) and two chapbooks. Her works appear in Gulf Coast, Passages North, Crazyhorse, THRUSH, and Fairy Tale Review, among others. Currently a PhD candidate at the University of Georgia and a Fulbright scholar, Hannah’s writing and research interests center monstrous aesthetics, post/apocalypse literature, and representations of alterity.