Unto the Breach

By Hannah Wilkinson

2ND EDITION: Unto the Breach is a chronological and semi-biographical collection of poetry, essays, and short stories by Hannah Wilkinson. Writings explore a variety of themes from the bold exploration of youth to the biting pleasure of love to the systematic paralysis of mental illness. Once more unto th

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hannah Wilkinson
• Release date: Apr 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088204429

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 Hannah Wilkinson

2nd Edition © 2023 Hannah Wilkinson

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13: 978-1-0881-2265-5

ISBN-13: 978-1-0882-0442-9 (e-book)

"Once more unto the breach,

dear friends, once more."

-Henry V, Shakespeare

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

The Wild, the Innocent, and the E-Street Shuffle

December 10, 1992

Monster

Spies

Bridges

Visitation

Kev, I

Kev, II

Kev, III

Veteran, OIF III

Faded

This is Not My Beautiful House

Speech

Does she, though?

Time Travel

Sherry

Risk Assessment

Commitment Phobia

Sex and Poetry

The Compromise of October, 2014

Something like living

Carry That Too

The Center Line

With Your Permission

Exsanguination

When it Rains

Speech II

Prize Fighter

Fortification

Edamame

That time I adopted your tumor and we became a family

You are the One, My Soul

Reciprocal Knowing

Layoffs

Urban Decay I

Urban Decay II

Urban Decay III

Strength and Perspective

Red Hot

Resolve

When was logic replaced…

Rise and Fall

The Impaler

Four of Two

A parking receipt for late November

Loose Eyelash

Free Woman

Inventory

Prognosis

Were I a Coin

Speech III

Sentence

three a.m.

Terzanelle of What Could Be

breathe

Reflex Response

Brick and Mortar

the usual

Clearing My Throat

Birch

Eternal Sunshine

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to all of the following people for your love and encouragement, for your influence on my life, both the good and the bad. You are all the one.

James, Kevyn, Margaret, Jason, Jon, Tom, Karla, Mark, Chandra, Kenny, Mike, Sherry, Stephanie, Phoebe, Phil, Christy, Dustin, Gozer, JF, Evan, Julie, Ernest, Dwayne, Amy, Rob, Theresa, Abigail, Andrew, Lexi, Mathew, Ethan, JV, Bonnie, Lori, Justin, Dan, Edward, and Hank.

The Wild, the Innocent, and the E-Street Shuffle

On the waters of Lake DeSmet

my dad and a can of Rainier

manned the motor

of the Squirley Anne.

I watched as Uncle Kenny

tried to bite into a live fish

and how he grinned

to show me the scales.

Through the first years of my life

Wyoming’s finest rednecks

shaped the core

of who I am.

We were the Hole in the Head Gang

camped beneath a big wooden sign

watched over by

Buddha and a bear.

Empty semi trailers circled

alongside campers and old tents

like the covered wagons

of the Bozeman Trail.

A sleeping drunk melted his boots

next to rainbow trout on the fire

while Bruce Springsteen

blasted through the night.

December 10, 1992

It’s been twenty-one years.

If you were a new baby born

you could drink by now.

Is that weird to think?

Probably, but certain numbers

have a way of doing that.

I don’t mean to be

the kind of person who

makes jokes about that

sort of thing but

I was only seven then

a lucky number, but not mine.

You were only forty,

plus twenty-one,

would be sixty-one now.