A to Z : Leisure, Hannah, Does Not Agree with You (2) - Hannah Gamble

  It is week two of Arlee Bird's 2013 A to Z Challenge!  For the challenge (and National Poetry Month) I have decided to post a poem for each letter of the alphabet!

 

Leisure, Hannah, Does Not Agree with You (2) (as appeared at The Poetry Foundation) 

Written  by Hannah Gamble 

—After Catullus

My house disgusted me, so I slept in a tent.

My tent disgusted me, so I slept in the grass. The grass disgusted me,

so I slept in my body, which I strung like a hammock from two ropes.

My body disgusted me, so I carved myself out of it.

 

My use of knives disgusted me because it was an act of violence.

My weakness disgusted me because “Hannah” means “hammer.”

The meaning of my name disgusted me because I’d rather be known

as beautiful. My vanity disgusted me because I am a scholar.

 

My scholarship disgusted me because knowledge is empty.

My emptiness disgusted me because I wanted to be whole.

My wholeness would have disgusted me because to be whole

is to be smug. Still, I tried to understand wholeness

 

as the inclusiveness of all activities: I walked out into the yard,

trying to vomit and drink milk simultaneously. I tried to sleep

while smoking a cigar. I have enough regrets to crack all the plumbing.

I’m whole only in that I’ve built my person from every thought I’ve ever loved.