Ode with Noncompliant Tendencies

I never thought “what’s happening to me?”

or “where did this come from?” as if sorrow

were something separate. It flickered there:

sweet ache of the pilot flame, consciousness

the match, the gas stream made of whatever

ether I was. Deep current. For so long,

I didn’t even want to get better.

In case it’d wipe the answering machine

that stored this particular life, threshing

the ochre field I slept in. If I admit

that sometimes I cherished this weighted shard

like an otter that knew her fists could fit

a righteous stone, which, worried smooth, might ply

the succor from a clot-purple shell, what then?

Hannah Matheson received her MFA in poetry at New York University, where she served as poetry editor of Washington Square Review. Previously awarded scholarships to attend The Frost Place Conference on Poetry, Hannah has poems published in Four Way Review, The Adroit Journal, Pigeon Pages, Solar, Image Journal, Honey Lit, Best New Poets, HAD, and elsewhere. Hannah currently works as senior editor at Four Way Books.