Two Poems

Hannah Louise Poston

Julia HungryShe reconstructs her ruptured orange peelwhile telling me about the fancy meal(such slick glass noodles, she could slip them downwithout the use of teeth, and bloodless beetsno longer than a tea-fork’s tine; pellucidsilver wine; a piece of uncooked fishin lemon sauce, so spare and colorlessit was completely imperceptibleagainst the platter’s ghostly porcelain,and on her tongue it melted clear away—she swallowed nothing). Pressed between her palms,the bitter peel is seamless as shellac.It’s empty and the orange won’t come back.PeonyIt’s come unlatched, the sloppy silk fistunhinging like a jaw as ifto swallow something bigger than itself—it’s come to this: the cleftshavings of truculent flesh,this precipice, this breathexhaled three-quarters-of-the-waythen held—an exoskeletal shadow-play,a suspended study in delay,like an empty houserelaxing into anonymity,like a woman who’s unbuttoned her blousebut wears it still, her nuditya possible impossibility—

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Hannah Louise Poston’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, Unsplendid, and others. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times. She is also an instructor of Argentine tango and the founder of Poema Clothing, purveyor of luxury handmade tango clothes. She lives in Los Angeles. Visit her web site at www.hannahlouiseposton.com

The Yale Review

18-Apr

New Haven, Connecticut

Yale University

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Meghan O'Rourke

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Andrew Heisel

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