Maryanne Hannan
has lived most of her life in upstate New York where she teaches Latin at Siena College.
She has poetry, recent or forthcoming, in Eclipse, Poet Lore, Pebble Lake Review, River Oak Review, and Windhover, as well as in several anthologies, including The Cento: A Collection of Collage Poems and Letters to the World: Poems from the Wom-Po Listserv, both from Red Hen Press.
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Cinquain to a Miner’s Canary
Die. Die.
Let today be
the day you, breathless, gasp
methane, monoxide. Embrace what’s
lethal.
Don’t let
my gentle cooing
when I carry your cage
deceive you. We two can never
be friends.
We spend
our damp black days
together by default.
Iron and duty imprison
the same.
You sing
as if the sun
shines randomly, its rays
no better than this blinding light.
Stop and
see me.
See my seeing eyes.
They dilate. They contract.
See my seeing eyes see nothing
but black.
With you
alive, I’m stuck—
imprisoned. In your breast,
your brilliant throttled warbling, you’ve
power.
What god
of feather deemed
it such, I know no more
than that my dreams are gone, buried
with me.
Can your
transient little
life matter at all? Each
day mindless as the next. But me,
I crave
without
relief. So choke,
sputter, drop. End this day.
I want. I want to be free. Let
me sing.
Trio-lie
Priests and presidents prevaricate
I myself dissemble
We like to see our words gyrate
Priests and presidents prevaricate
It chafes the mind to validate
Why lament a little stumble?
Priests and presidents prevaricate
I myself dissemble
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