Conjuring the Hurricane: Two Poems by Sarah Hanson
THEY ASK HER WHY SHE DIDN’T JUST LEAVE
I asked once: How do bees fly with such tiny
wings? It doesn’t look like it should be possible,
but that’s only if you think of wings like birds.
Bees move their wings diagonally, starting up
and back, then forward and down,
while also flipping their wings upside down
as they flap. All of which causes the air above
the wings to swirl, and it is this swirling
vortex that creates the lift for flight. Physicists
call this a Dynamic Stall.
It doesn’t look like it should be possible.
Each countercurrent is an exit. The stall
is your answer. She is working out
how to leave, the only way that is possible to her.
She is conjuring the hurricane.
IN ANOTHER VERSION OF THIS STORY
He uses two bullets instead of one,
because I never found the courage
to leave. I walk down the aisle,
change my name, have his babies.
I pour his cocktail and throw myself
over the shrapnel of his explosions
so the children don’t cut their feet
on their father’s anger. In another version
of this story, I cling to the cigarette-stained
walls of that townhouse, a haunted
portrait, absorbing the horrors behind black
curtains so we can smile I public
instead of tearing our frames to the floor.
In another version of this story, my shattered
pinky finger is only the first of many broken
bones. I am still saying it’s fine, I’ll get it.
I’m sorry, you’re right. I do his laundry
as I hem in my feelings with ever-neater stitches
instead of ripping the seams clean open. In another
version of this story, I am still pouring
vodka tonics and starving myself for a man who hated me and called it love.
Excerpted with permission from Conjuring the Hurricane: The Best Way to Save Your Life is Any Way You Can by Sarah Hanson (Inked Elephant Publishing, 2026)
About the Author
Sarah Hanson is a Minneapolis poet with a Master of Arts from the University of Chicago, the school that proudly prints “Where Fun Goes to Die” on t-shirts. She graduated from the school of No Fun, the academy of Childhood Trauma, and the higher education echelon of Domestic Abuse. She remains apprenticed to life and the universal curriculum of loss, joy, healing, redemption, and resurrection.
Her poetry has been featured in Sierra Nevada Review, The Literary Times, Saranac Review, and Anti-Heroin Chic, among other literary magazines. Sarah is a contributing editor of the poetry anthology “Shaking Off the Ashes.”
She lives in Minneapolis with her husband Jay; their three cats, Darwin, Waffles, and Princess Leia; and a codependent To Be Read book pile that will follow her into the afterlife. Learn more about Sarah at her website.
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