Friday, June 28, 2013

Walking on Eggshells, Sleeping on Air

By Jennifer Hunt, from the archives

It’s 6 AM and I would get up if only
The mattress we bought over the phone
Had not floated up
Leaving three inches between my nose
And this ceiling

At least I think it is I who has floated
And not the roof which has sunk
Yet perhaps
The sky was falling
The sky is falling
The sky is falling
And has been off and on for some time now
Since you climbed
Into the burnt stump out back
And began growing rings

“These coils are like sleeping on air,”
Pledged the salesman over the phone
Before landing his commission.
Air is not all it's cracked up to be

If manufacturer's words mean anything
The warranty predicts
I should be down
In fifteen years

Friday, June 14, 2013

Was I four or five or seven?

By Jennifer Hunt, a poem written for my dad, from the archives

Was I four or five or seven?
Years have blurred my sense of time
Seems like yesterday Dad caught me
Running through the birch and pine
Little daughter in a sun dress
Parting smooth wind with her face
Sprinting harder, getting farther,
Leaving grass clips in her wake

Giggles spilling from inside me
Doing hopscotch over rocks
Clearing grass and reaching road dirt
Like a robber from the cops
Had good reason to be missing
And it wasn’t to escape
But to find the glee of knowing
That a dad would win the chase

Seems like yesterday he caught me
I take three steps to his one
And just now I can’t remember
When my running had begun
Or just when it will be over
But this smile squints my eyes
Because I know if I were missing
He’d be . . .
. . .on his way to find

Omnipotence

by Jen Hunt, from the archives

How can I tell
Which is harder
To heal or to forgive
When I can't do either?
Praise to Jesus
Doer of both!

I Am Not

By Jen Hunt, from the archives

I am not
You are not
He, she, it is not
We are not
You (pl) are not
They are not
The I Am Who I Am