Elizabeth Hazen

Approximations

The sun is not on fire after all;
nothing burns. Protons smash to make a gaseous

mass of heat, but without flame. All these years
I’ve had it wrong, like when my anger wasn’t

anger, rather fear mixed up with loneliness—
but I was talking about the sun, the nuances

of burning, the stories we learn as children:
bulls charge if they see red, the moon alone 

controls the tides, and Twinkies last forever.
Didn’t we all wait for watermelons to bloom 

in our bellies? Bank on the belief that effort
yields reward? Doesn’t your name, too, sound 

like a foreign language? Look at us: barefaced,
slouching through middle age. I wouldn’t say 

the birds here sing so much as shriek. I wouldn’t
trust myself to say a thing, betrayed as I am 

by language. This sun that burns us isn’t fire,
but look at us: our cheeks flush just the same.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Elizabeth Hazen is a poet and essayist. After teaching for twenty years, she changed tracks and now works at an independent bookstore. Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Epoch, American Literary Review, Shenandoah and other journals. She has published two collections of poetry: Chaos Theories (2016) and Girls Like Us (2020). Her third collection, The Sky Will Hold, is forthcoming in March 2026. She lives in Baltimore with her family.