The Hawk Kitchen 3:25pm
I have written My Self
into a corner
I have consumed a whole bowl
of Pop Corn
& taken My Ball, My Cap Gun
& My Dolly
home
I am The Petulant Child
Who’s eaten all Her Cookies & Milk
and left without thanking
The Mommy
The Hawk Kitchen 9:40am
That Dancerina Doll
was My Body Type
That Was Me
spinning in a little girl’s bedroom
on TV
spinning out on a rooftop
at The WTC
age 23
*title from WHB
The Hawk Deck 11:48am
My Brother had a Magic Pendant —
have I written of It before?
He asked It Yes or No
Questions
& told His Fortune
but We don’t have It now —
It was Our Mother’s —
heavy hand-wrought Silver
with A Bird on one side
Rose on the other
The Hawk Kitchen 6:50pm
I remember those dirty-necked boys
— what they tried with me —
the one in 4th grade
who put dimes in my desk
until he confessed
& breathed his lips
across my neck —
the one on my father’s farm
who shifted in the bed
of an old pick up
to the left of me on an extracted truck seat
under a discarded printed comforter
I distinctly remember —
he tried nuzzling me:
“What are you doing?”
“Giving you a hickey.”
“What? — I’m only eleven!”
The Tomato-coloured Couch 7:22pm
When I was five years old
My Mother took Me into New York City
to see The Musical Annie Get Your Gun
The Only Part I remember
was The Ballroom Scene
with actors holding plates of food
& I asked My Mother
“Is That Real Food?”
The Hawk Basement 11:22am
I have ULTRAVISION
standing in My Packed-up Basement
Packed-up for Library renovations
here I have The Computer
I named The Hulk
am I off track?
Oh! ULTRAVISION is green!
Indian Ring Neck Parrot Green
glowing on the obsolete VCR
The Hawk Kitchen 10:45am
When I was a not-so-little girl
I sucked My Thumb watching
Cowboys & Indians on My Father’s TV
until one night My Red-headed Step Sister
tied My Right Wrist to an iron bed post
with thick green yarn
–
Now I eat a daily banana
in My Back Yard
in My Bath Robe
& aim the peels
between the spaces
within the leafy — in summer —
hedge
Joanna Gilman Hyde 