Three Poems by Hannah Haas: The Double Dream, The Light, Metal

Three Poems
by Hannah Haas

The Double Dream

It came first with the rain we had forgotten
In the morning, I stepped out
                      into the air’s ozone and sage
the scent of the creosote bush
        deepening the birds’ twitters from the palm
Orange blossoms
     drifted memories across the city

Mesquites blushed honey flowers
                                 and I rode with a friend
top down along the wide boulevards    We’d eaten
          shrimp grilled in lime
                            in the back yard evening
Our Midwestern bodies
                       flushed with this double fever
    The first in February when the air warms
The second
         surely safe now at ninety degrees
                 when the desert flowers

The Light

The days were blown out bright white
sun continually bleaching my perception
until a dark room was a reprieve
that my body sighed and sunk into
shelter from the 360 days without weather
No temperature on the bank clocks
no seasons to mark the time passing
no arcs of trees overhead
to cradle us to the earth

Metal

Streets of shadow boxes—
the twisted iron
forms of a strong
man and a saguaro
guarding claw foot
tubs glistening
in showroom
low light. Gallery
fronted with teeth
of silver flame. Inside,
a motor-cycle gang
of metal crows made
from the bodies of cars.
I remember us
as reflections
in the plate glass,
faces held in barred
silence.

Hannah Haas teaches creative writing and composition at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. She received her B.A. from Indiana University and her M.F.A. from the University of Arizona’s Creative Writing Program. Her work has appeared in journals such as ACM and Folio.

Copyright 2011, Hannah Haas. © This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.