Anti-Heroin Chic
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Music
  • Art
  • Comedy
  • About Our Contributors
  • Masthead
  • Issues
  • About our contributors - 2019
  • About Our Contributors - 2020
  • About Our Contributors - 2021
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Music
  • Art
  • Comedy
  • About Our Contributors
  • Masthead
  • Issues
  • About our contributors - 2019
  • About Our Contributors - 2020
  • About Our Contributors - 2021
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

​

10/6/2022

Poetry By Nancy Huggett

Picture
         Tim Vrtiska CC





Maybe It’s the Cicadas

So, she’s up and hit you again. 
Her fractured brain sparked 
by some random directive, or maybe
it’s the cicadas.             She throws her 

phone, the one in the protective case
that can’t protect you from its blow.
You turn, tired now. You know tears 
only incite more rage, so you stare up 

at the trees. Ancient maples gathering 
the breeze, cooling the clouds. You raise
your face, pray for something to unravel this
heat. This sorrow that boils beneath, engulfs

a whole day. Not sorrow. Anger. Dig 
deeper. Fear. Deeper. This molten 
sense of failure that consumes 
your ribcaged heart when all you want 

to do is love her back into 
herself and let her go. 





We Long to Name

your muscled misery, 
your panicked pain. Ghosts 
edging the stone walls we’ve built 
to keep you safe and healing. We dim 
the world for your shattered brain.
Fractaled sunlight, bright colours, sharp 
sounds. Our ambiguous grief. We hold 

it all in. Leave the rest out. Crack
an opening to test the elements.
Reckless derecho drowns 
your dreams. My salty tears 
number the losses, unnamed,
we have been holding for you. Still 

you rise. Tumbled, stumbling,
dendrites misfiring.
Looking for those open 
arms that say: It’s alright.
You’re here. You belong. 





My Jessie

she’s a full-blown tragedy but lives 
her life like a dream while I plump 
the clouds around her as she floats.
I am mother. Full of hope, wind. Blowing, 

blowing so her sails are full. Each stone 
thrown, picked up and mined for a vein 
of gold or a prism. Others hidden away. 
The stones will come, I say. The boulders too. 

But this is how you sail. Look 
here are the sirens. Here the earplugs. Let me 

tie you to the mast. This will pass. The seas 
are full of mythic creatures—scaled, exhaling 

fire. But it’s her own breath that burns 
the bindings, those that tie her 
to the world. She floats        
                                                                 away                 away.



​
Nancy Huggett is a settler descendant who writes, lives, and caregives in Ottawa, Canada on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people. Thanks to Firefly Creative, Merritt Writers, and not-the-rodeo poets, she has work out/forthcoming in Citron Review, Literary Mama, The Forge, Prairie Fire, The New Quarterly, and Waterwheel Review. ​
​

Comments are closed.

    Author

    Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.

    Archives

    December 2024
    November 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    March 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.