Who may be listening

Hana Shapiro

Escape from posthumous platitudes to
Be a truth they cannot deny
Despite all their search for
A One and Only
Pasted over and over
Until we reach some perverse word count
As long as we reach the end
Since at least there is one

No more worries about
What comes after a rest that finally comes
All of the eyes staring blankly
At the future they are living
Tingling the flesh we’ve preserved from the past
That still carries us even in shock

Like I have carried my future child
Across a womb of hot sand and plastic in every dream
Where I will have had to learn how
To conjure a will from the shadow of disappearing vapor
Until I learn how to drink from the sun

I must be wax to those who watch me intently
And iron to those who notice.
The weapon heat and furious warmth will melt accordingly
So I may become the shape suitable for
My use.

I will only look like myself
Without hope
To that which will decimate me
Or save me where there’s one day
A world with us in it.

Hana Kobayashi Shapiro is a medical student, birder, and poet living in Philadelphia. She received a Bachelor’s in Biochemistry with a Minor in English from Northeastern University. She has had poem published in BRUISER Magazine and has received the 2020 Peter Burton Hanson Writing Award from the English Department for her poetry and photography project “帰る行く.” She continues her poetry practice as a means of processing the trials, emotions, and honors of medical education.