Hana Widerman

First Date Blues

I. 

Pale blue turtle neck sweater, black pencil skirt,
I’ve got to dress nice for dinner tonight. 

I have to see myself as a certain type
of woman. My mother’s on the phone 

with her words latching onto me like ivy,
one step away from poetry. I delay 

dressing. My mother’s disembodied voice
brings up men she thinks I should give 

the time of day. Alright, I say.
My mornings to him, and my evenings 

to the other. My love will shift accordingly
like the face of a clock. 

Tonight, I may give him both
my evening and morning. He may 

become my entire day, my dear
of sun and moonlight. It’s all still 

hypothetical, and I’ll keep it there.
Or else it becomes invasive,

consumes a whole world.

II.  

I want to keep it light
and parental, ask about the pain 

in her arm, her art, what time
we’ll eat brunch together 

this week. I reach for the pale
blue turtle neck sweater,

the black pencil skirt. I decide last minute
no bra. Underneath the habitual 

rendering of her days, I wonder
how my mother’s heartbreaks 

looked, the timeline of her
sorrow. No man seems to have 

ever broken her. I wonder
if I inherited the wrong

schedule of mourning.

III.

I tried to write you
into the future tense again and again.

I was stubborn. 

The leaves outside my window
take steps all around me.

I’m not alone. I never am. 

Ghosts of us under each act,
under each day. 

The leaves take steps, I follow
with the hollow sound of heels.

You’re on me like rain.

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Born to a Japanese mother and an American father, Hana Widerman is a poet originally from California. She graduated from Princeton University with a degree in English and won the James Richardson Award in Poetry. She is currently an MFA student at Cornell University, where she was the 2024 recipient of the George Harmon Coxe Poetry Prize. Her poetry appears in The Journal, The Washington Square Review, The Offing and elsewhere.