M. Ann Hull
_________________________________________________________________________________________
TOC | Next
Just Beyond the Possible
For B.
I try and smash our childhoods
together, scratch velcro scraps
in place of a bridge we can cross
before we can cross lace over
lace, over-under until tied tight.
We are tied tight to our pasts,
the monsters real as rain beyond
doorframes. Your monster wants
to be called Daddy, mine Father—
a thorn doesn’t go by any other name.
Your monster watches too close:
wrong way with the lace and it’s
snapping boots and stomping belt
straps—the way a little man is
made. My monster doesn’t see
me watching him clap a slap over
Mother’s face, the way a doormat
gets scraped. I stack blocks beside
your bed, a bed I’ve made with the C
and the B and the A to lay next
to your body, trembling bruise bit,
afraid. I’ll wiggle my fingers into
yours until the pain stops fitting
like a shoe pressed to a throat. I’ll
hold your hand until you can name
my name. Learning to love after
is like breathing under water.
It involves evolving. Each time
we’ll fight as adults, we can’t
forget we met in this place,
we can’t forget to not become
each other’s monster.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
M. Ann Hull has published work in 32 Poems, Barrow Street, BOXCAR Poetry Review, Fugue, Mid-American Review, Passages North, and Quarterly West, amongst others, and has been awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize. A former poetry editor of Black Warrior Review, she holds an MFA from the University of Alabama.