I asked nothing of you – remember that.
All my wants, when I first voice them, fossilize,
porous as pumice. See how each artifact
gleams under your attention beneath the boxed glass.
Bergson called the body an office, Dickinson, an ottoman.
I claim museum, as it has claimed me.
You call again tonight and promise exactly
nothing. Salt, steel, diorama – setting announces
the epoch’s anatomy. There is no giving, or getting back,
among the rocks and ash.

Hannah Bonner's poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Bear Review, Pigeon Pages, Rattle, The Carolina Quarterly, The Pinch Journal, The Vassar Review, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, TriQuarterly, and Two Peach. She has an MA in Film Studies and is pursuing a creative nonfiction MFA at The University of Iowa. She currently serves as the poetry editor for Brink.