Finalist for the Driftless Prize in Poetry Learn more >
Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick: Francine Avoids Blood Oranges for the Sound They Make Inside Her
Francine believes in prophecies like one believes in the body, the sea. Not of myself, she writes, but over it. Not the whole of the ocean, she writes, but within it. Francine walks after dinner each night to reach her. The self, she writes, eats oranges. Not blood, veins, fruit. Francine believes in prophecies like one believes in swallowing. There’s a field with wheat, she writes, then food to eat. There’s a boy undressing then a fight. A monster in us, a fish. This is my wish, she writes, to become a prophecy—lonely, untouched.
SHANNON ELIZABETH HARDWICK received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is the resident poet for Port Yonder Press online magazine Beyondaries and has a chapbook, Hummingbird Mind, in print from Mouthfeel Press. She has been nominated for Best New Poets and her work has been featured or is upcoming in 3:AM Magazine, Night Train, Versal, Sugar House Review, Four Way Review, among others. She writes in the deserts of West Texas.
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