Poetry

Elizabeth Hoover, a finalist in Narrative’s Eleventh Annual Poetry Contest, has an MFA from Indiana University and is a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.

The Archive Is All in Present Tense and Other Poems

by Elizabeth Hoover


The Archive Is All in
Present Tense

Librarians turn slender shadows in the afternoon light
gathering materials along the ledge. Three men exit
a Jeep on a hillside, doors slam in unison. Two orphans
walk into a dance for soldiers. Wind winters down
from the north. Concertina wire unspools
like fat loops of cursive, I’ve always wanted
a boyfriend like you,
language making it impossible
for her to love me back, though no one could love
me now, preoccupied as I am by war, paging
arrest records, letters, diaries, clippings
in their acid-free envelopes. I sort through tea lights,
radio crackles, paper fortune-tellers predicting the man
who will marry you, what house he will buy
you, paper turning to snow in her hands
folding, unfolding.

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