Constance Hansen
Afternoon
Tea and satisfaction
in the symmetry
of well-plated snacks.
A pair of egg-shaped
dishes smile pear slices
below string cheese noses,
raisin eyes & apple-cheeked
banana muffins, dusted
with cinnamon. Food is love
when I offer it—just sharing
from the bundle my mother
handed me absentmindedly
as she wandered into the marshes
after a heron, that long-legged
covenant riding the wind
mid-lake: a promise
of restoration, every hair
upon her head regrown,
even over the keloid
scythe where they
would have taken
what was killing her,
if it were something
that could be given.
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Constance Hansen is Managing Editor of Poetry Northwest. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in: RHINO, Harvard Review Online, Southern Humanities Review, Four Way Review, The Cortland Review, Cimarron Review, Northwest Review, Vallum, On the Seawall and elsewhere. Originally from Seattle, she lives in Paris. You may learn more at www.constancehansen.com.