1
Less than there
or there in a time-lock
or there to be forgotten and later
found in the suitcase, under piles
of itself, holding on to its blued meaning
A valentine among poster cut-outs, never
meant to be unearthed plucked out
dusted for oil of
I once loved you
or I wish you had moved with me
or I know you won’t throw me out
2
Are tears ephemera, drying up as they do after every crooked bone, shorn heart? Is my
heart ephemera, willing to serve a second purpose, or a first purpose in a second body,
indicated only by that unassuming red blot on my driver’s license? The body must be
ephemera—object incapable of holding onto itself, constantly spilling out
into the world, condensing and evaporating. Constantly drying up and breaking down.
3
Decomposition is acknowledging that you
will never be a time-capsule
--
Hannah Bernhard– poet and hopeful book artist–recently graduated from Smith College with a BA in English and a concentration in poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Labrys, Quick Brown Fox, and Meat for Tea. At Smith, Hannah was awarded both the Ethel Olin Corbin and Rosemary Thomas poetry prizes. She currently works as a program advisor at World internships in Northampton, MA, where she lives with a handful of roommates, two small pets, and a hell of a lot of plants.