By Hannah Nathanson
Her back bent into a question mark, the earth the dot. My sister, once baby, places her hands on
opposite sides of the room, one to turn the tap for water and one upon our mother’s shoulder,
turning her into an exclamation point if only briefly. The continents and all their cultures collapse
within my sister’s arm-span. We are all stuck within the hole of her width until she turns the tap
back towards the backsplash and the wind is once again outside, the ocean once again 595 miles
east, the dirt once again buried beneath the house. When my mother greets me, she is the string
to mine and my sister’s cans. When it is gone, the noise of the lack of her will be unbearably
loud for so long. When all there is the running faucet, I don’t know any of our ages, just that we
are unfortunate in having them. My mother’s eyes comb my hair. They make my bed. They drive
my sister back to school in the weeks after Halloween, right before the snow begins again.
Hannah Nathanson is a poet concerned with the sentience of objects. She recently completed an honors thesis in poetry through Binghamton University. Her work appears in Sage Cigarettes, Rejection Letters, Peach Mag, and elsewhere. She is the author of Alternative Universes (Bone & Ink Press, 2020) and was a recipient of the 2021 Academy of American Poets Prize. Hannah spends her time creating and loving throughout New York State.
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