From our Fall 2014 issue, M.N. Hanson‘s poem “Friday Night, Saturday Morning” is a dark, fractured journey from the alluring anticipation of evening to the cold light of day.

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1.
WEIGHED MYSELF – WITH SHOES
Weighed myself – without shoes
Weighed myself – holding the cat
Stripped down and weighed myself naked.
Weighed myself wearing nothing but an apron and holding the cast iron skillet.
(I’ve always wanted to make dinner for someone and wear nothing but an apron.)

2.
There is no escape on winter nights.

Leave house, walk through cold dark to someone’s darkened car.
Strapped into darkened car, shuttled through dark.
Leave darkened car, walk through cold dark to dark bar.

Oppressive darkness into oppressive light,
Oppressive pressure of bodies against bodies;
Bare bulbs blinding against deep, empty shadows,
And bodies, bodies, bodies,
Bodies all the way down.

3.
I was too drunk.
I was drunk and dehydrated.
He tried to use water for lubricant.
It didn’t work –
                    My insides tore,
And he used my blood.

4.
When we went out for a walk, the kitchen table was still on our front porch.
The table was square – chrome and formica, legs rusted toward the bottom.
While we were gone, someone stole it.
We replaced it with a pipe organ we found,
Disassembled on the curb in front of a Lutheran church.
We didn’t eat breakfast that morning; at noon, I had broth,
Huddled against the organ’s wind chest,
Experimentally fingering the stop knobs.

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’12 MFA: Writing – The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
’09 BA: English, Cinema and Comparative Literature – University of Iowa, Iowa City
’08 Irish Writing Program, Dublin, Ireland