Haley Hodge

While Trying to Write a Sestina on Hoping

Dover sits like a postcard
in purple twilight and melting snow.
I think I see you, but it’s only the orange glow
from distant windows. 

It’s been windy all week, but tonight
everything is still, and the kind of quiet
that only comes with distance. 

The moon. I’m so tired of talking
about the moon, but it’s almost full,
shining dull through hazy clouds. 

I want to write something about cigarettes
but everything sounds so familiar, like
the smell of my fingertips, and your hair
after we’ve stepped outside to smoke. 

I am aching. The body's response to poison.
Funny how some lines just stick. I zip
up my coat, not sure what’s breath
and what’s smoke. Not sure whether 

it’s the moon howling way up there, or I. Why
should I waste these lines on a sestina when
they taste so good in my mouth.

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Haley Hodge is a poet originally from the Blue Ridge Mountain region who now calls the Seacoast of New Hampshire home. Haley is the art editor for Barnstorm Journal, a literary journal housed by the University of New Hampshire’s MFA program. Her work has appeared in Frogpond, Written Tales Magazine and Anacapa Review, among others.