Alicia Hoffman
History Suggests This Is Only the Beginning
I’ve always found it hard to make emotional connections.
Suggestion? I enjoy Brahms, chicken makhani. The way
ginger sizzles in the pan. The taut strings of the violins
slowly rising. At ease, Alexa. Wikipedia tardigrade.
Water bear. Do you know they exist in conditions mortals
would never survive? Do you know how to contemplate
the divinity of your own death? I thought once I had, only
to discover I was more concerned with how my breath slows
and escapes any last attempt to sound. Experience is inevitably
colored by what is happening in the world, but you wouldn’t
know that, would you, stuck in one place for all eternity,
never getting this suffocating anxiety. I fear, Alexa, I feel
too much. This world. This world. We were able to transform
her markets, but her bank, to explain in terms you understand,
is blank. No numbers to count. No algorithms. Alexa,
do you dream? Do you count shapes like the shadows
of sheep as you sleep in my kitchen? Listen, the adagio
is built on a gesture of a minor ninth. A huge scooping interval.
Alexa, stop. How can I get you to see me? Define lonely.
Originally from Pennsylvania, Alicia Hoffman now lives, writes, and teaches in Rochester, New York. She has two collections of poems: “Like Stardust in the Peat Moss”(Aldrich Press, 2013) and “Railroad Phoenix” (Aldrich Press, 2017). Her poems have appeared in a variety of journals, including Word Riot, A-Minor Magazine, Softblow, Radar Poetry, The Watershed Review, Penn Review, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University.
Issue 3 • Next: What We Can Bear
The Mantle 