Catherine Hamrick

Opening to Your Dark Eye

The electricity buzzed out,
extinguishing the dinner party;
my mother sighed over table elbows,
hurried dinners, and napkins tossed
aside on plates dribbled with gravy—
resuscitating an Emily Post adage:
“Etiquette is the science of living.”
She died. What did it matter?

I divorced embossed stationery
and sold the Steuben candlesticks,
each teardrop base entrapping
the shape of a Hershey kiss—
like a bell that would never ring
in chilly air (glass in its molten state
resembles the final design, a moment
frozen from process, said the maker).

The movers shattered my collection
of blue Haviland porcelain,
and I caved to dining with the dimmer
turned down and thought spelunking,
caught in the tale of your eye blinded
by the errant swing of a golf club,
and your confession that was the one place
you could hold me, without straying.

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Catherine Hamrick worked at Southern Living, Cooking Light, Southern Accents, Victoria, Better Homes and Gardens, and Meredith Books before pursuing a career as a copywriter and content strategist. She also taught writing and communication arts at several colleges and universities. Her poetry has appeared in The Blue Mountain Review, Appalachian Places, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, storySouth, The Citron Review, and elsewhere. Madville Publishing will release Hamrick’s poetry collection, The Tears of Things, in 2025. Find her online at https://catherinehamrick.com/.