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

On Flocking Together

By Jennifer Hunt, from the archives

Consider the flock
Of pigeons on this sidewalk.
What's their bond?
Is it their plumage? Or only
A queer attraction to the same,
Overstuffed trash bin.
As graceful as a junior high dance
As friendly as a country club
Necks ticking off my odd points
Eyes scolding me up and down,
I’m molted on the spot.
Their tattle all coo-coo's and poo-poo's
A quibbling over yesterday's lunch
I'd rather be plucked than join in.
But when I hear your strain
From across Pigeon Alley,
I forget all about Audobon's canon.
You could be a goldfinch
I, a blue-footed booby
Still, I would flock to you
Faster than airwaves
Because on the inside—
Where no birdwatcher can go—
On the inside
Our feathers match perfectly.

Florida Vacation

by Jen Hunt, from the archives

Coy winter plays at summer
As the breeze grazes my temples
But her chill betrays
The true season

The sun lifts her head from her pillow
The sun props herself up with her hands

Arching her back
She stretches
One arm
Then another—
Exhales her breathy rays above the hills

My spirit slinks down
Distilled by glow
Refined by shadow
We are at rest
The sun and I

Snow Day

Cozy, cozy
Cozy, dozy
Cozy, cozy
Snowy day.
I'll stay tucked in
From toes to nose
From now
Until late May.

Just in Case

by Jen Hunt, from the archives

If my clock radio turns 12:01
on day one of the new year
I vow to chuck this roll of yellowed gauze
in donut-shaped tin
tucked in a teapot together with the remains
of my dead grandmother’s
medicine chest

I have moved it
from New Jersey to Dallas
all the way through middle America
and down into my in-laws’ basement up
in Outagamie County, Wisconsin
four times in all

I have made room for this tin
where there was none
in closets of one bedroom student apartments
when three of us occupied
a four computer, five bookshelf, no TV, one car,
graduate-student submarine
When you live with a crib
in your kitchen, you think
about downsizing
a
lot

In my mind I have
rearranged, released, discarded
this canister a thousand times

Somewhere a purse-lipped docent
at the Historical American Toiletry Museum
is waiting to put a check by “Ordinary Gauze Tin” on her preservation list

If the world does not collapse tomorrow
she can find mine in the dumpster on January 2
Until then, I’m holding on,
just in case