Hanna Marie Gunderson

THE NEW EARTH

I was going up a mountain
on one foot
in the afternoon

I was cerulean. I was waiting

for you to undress
in the artificial twilight
I was lopsided. I wanted

the weather to assemble
into something I could point to.
This is real desire.
This is the sniper rifle accuracy
of my mother’s memory

versus the way that events
clunk in and out
of my hands

and into nostalgia. I’m still
blown away by cherry blossoms

and perforated
by a voice on my radio
saying
this is the new earth
and no matter what’s going on
in your reality
it’s a very exciting place to be
what you say matters
what you say becomes matter.

This is peeling back the layers
of the self
because the radio says so
all the way to my aircraft carrier heart.

Hanna Marie Gunderson lives and writes in Northampton, MA. She is an M.F.A. candidate in Poetry at the UMass Amherst Program for Poets and Writers, and an Editor for Slope Editions.