- Mar 23
- 3 min read
Poem in which I keep saying a word I'm not allowed to say
not to be a jerk, but to be honest
about the elephant in this life,
which is a poem stuffed with ocean
and sky and beating heart—oh, that word,
troubled as a heart itself so often is.
This heart breaks its vow of silence,
rips off its veil, jumps the cloister wall,
and runs into the open field blanketed
in sunrise. This heart stretches its lungs
and sets free the cry of a hatchling
for a mouthful of worms. Parrots
are cracking sugar in this heart, in the folds
of this heart candle flames blow kisses
to each other and linger hazy-eyed,
longing for their next encounter
in the lobby of an old hotel, giant
potted palms punctuating the corners
of Persian rugs lush with bougainvillea
and impossibly hued birds-of-paradise.
This heart flaps inside my blouse
and beneath my pearls as I watch you
from behind a palm, waiting for me
at one end of an overstuffed sofa,
raising a rock glass to your lips and swallowing
a warm mouthful of whiskey. This heart slinks
across the lobby like an apprentice
ballroom dancer. Then this heart works
the overnight shift at the warehouse
by the dock, clocking in early,
going home late, that old brick building
where stray cats hang around outside
the rusty steel door, expecting
flakes of cod and cheese to fall
from the shadows. Inside this heart
are pools of rain reflecting neon signs
for frolicsome delights—food truck falafels
piled in a paper cone, tacos hugging mounds
of meat, cheesecake on a stick—
my heart says it can’t eat cheesecake,
but my heart hearts so much
it lets my heart have it, and this heart
shares it with everyone, passes it around
with plate and fork, like a nurse
dispensing ice chips, until it is all gone,
until this heart is so empty
with fullness that it pours itself a drink,
stretches out on a divan, and listens,
listens for the singing of your birds.
JENNIFER HAMBRICK is a seven-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of four poetry collections: a silence or two (Red Moon Press), winner of a 2025 Merit Book Award from the Haiku Society of America; In the High Weeds (NFSPS Press), winner of the Stevens Manuscript Award from the National Federation of State Poetry Societies; Joyride (Red Moon Press), winner of the Marianne Bluger Book Award from Haiku Canada; and Unscathed (NightBallet Press). Jennifer is featured by U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser in American Life in Poetry, with Rattle editor Tim Green on Rattlecast, on the Ohio Poetry Association’s Poetry Spotlight podcast, and elsewhere, and her free verse and haikai poems are published in Rattle, The Columbia Review, The American Journal of Poetry, Santa Clara Review, San Pedro River Review, POEM, Modern Haiku, Contemporary Haibun Online, and in numerous other journals and invited anthologies. Jennifer is a frequent recipient of poetry commissions and has won many awards for her work, including the Sheila-Na-Gig Poetry Prize, First Prize in the Haiku Society of America’s Haibun Award Competition, First Prize in the Martin Lucas Haiku Competition (U.K.), and four First Prize honors and a Special Award in the inaugural Heliosparrow Haiku Frontier Awards. Follow her on Instagram at jenniferhambrickpoet and visit her at jenniferhambrick.com.