#susan hahn

[extollingtheeveryday]

Susan Hahn // "Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur" (1991)

[hertheory]

— Susan Hahn, "Her Purse, at the Winter Solstice"

[weltgebaeude]

[violettesiren]

Because her body lies transverse inside the old year, it can't birth itself. It needs the help of forceps to grab her head and press more deformity into it. Because she doesn't understand how

to divide up time (Does the day begin at midnight, dawn?) she can't count the intervals between contractions or hold on to her possessives, especially the state of being

curve. Because she doesn't know how to go into the dilation of morning, only the fetal positions of mourning, she can't take the chance of pushing out chin first, forcing her face into the future,

further and further extending herself from her chest—cage that covers the bleeding heart. She risks asphyxiation as horns blow new from other mouths—and kisses, too.

The Woman Who Hated New Year’s Eve by Susan Hahn

[violettesiren]

The flowers will not allow themselves to be tricked by this day, the sudden blaze of sun that ignites my window and melts its crust of ice— lights my shade—this morning when I rise

past the night terrors— the 2 a.m. immolations of the mind. How many explosions will it take to find you finally

gone from me, before the time your body's actually set on fire—when you are scattered somewhere beyond loss, your spirit adrift always from mine? But, today

when you phone after all the dark months of silence, the endless scenes of hunger and singular deaths— one switch of the dial so easily reports it—to say hello, how’s it going, I remember the voice

in my heated dreams that keeps calling to me, and how I push and push up through the mud forever trying to reach it, forever saying Yes.

February Day by Susan Hahn

[sustentavelimaginario]

FEBRUARY DAY The flowers will not low themselves to be tricked by this day, the sudden blaze of sun that ignites my window and melts its crust of ice- lights my shade-this morning when I rise past the night terrors- the 2 a.m. immolations of the mind. How many explosions will it take to find you finally gone from me, before the time your body's actually set on fire-when you are scattered somewhere beyond loss, your spirit adrift always from mine? But, today when you phone after all the dark months of silence, the endless scenes of hunger and singular deaths- one switch of the dial so easily reports it-to say hello, how's it going, I remember the voice in my heated dreams that keeps calling to me, and how I push and push up through the mud forever trying to reach it, forever saying Yes.

Susan Hahn

[allyourprettywords]

“The Eucalyptus Tree,” Mahtem Shiferraw

          after Susan Hahn

I long for it on quiet nights and call it home. It stands tall and muscular above the mountains. It sees me but does not flinch. It feeds me honey and wild winds. It calls me child, but I do not hear. Its leaves a balm for blistering skin; what comes after a cry, or bleeding – its aroma, like autumn, like rain, standing green, translucent thing between my father and I, and the ghosts of Gojiam. It sees us bleeding, bleeding be. We carve wombs throughout its roots and rest our little bodies. We bear children the size of seeds and fold them into our branch arms. The rings of fire that embrace us are blue with fear. Everywhere we go, we smell of death and something sweet –

[damasquedman]