Hope is the thing with feathers
            - Emily Dickinson

by Lacie Semenovich


My hope cowers in the rain, a gold
finch in a hurricane, the windows
boarded, the roof flapping like a wing.

Sitting in the park, my hope counts
cigarette butts on the ground. She collects
garbage from the gutter to warm her nest.

My hope begs on the pier in St. Pete,
jostles her sisters, spreads her gullet for dead
fish thrown by tourists.

Wind drunk, my hope glides the sky
in search of mice to fatten her belly, never
satisfied, she misnames her hunger.

My hope lies like a devil.

As a child, I gathered hope from
the shore, wet, salty leftovers pressed
into books my mother threw out.

My hope sings a prayer to sunrise,
to awakening, to breath, to spring’s
slow revolution.

I sleep on pillows of hope. Wrapped
in a comforter stuffed with hope. On
a bed so soft I dream of flying.

My hope, sanitized, sharpened, dipped
in ink, spreads words across paper, hoping
itself to live forever.


* * * * *

Lacie Semenovich is a poet and fiction writer living in Cleveland, Ohio. Her work has appeared in B O D Y, Sheila-Na-Gig online, Qwerty, Chiron Review, and The Best Small Fictions 2020. She is the author of a chapbook, Legacies (Finishing Line Press).