Hannah Moore
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My Mycorrhizal Moment
Running was never my thing. It wasn’t yours either, but if I could rely on anything, it was that you would be there, through every flight of fancy I took up. Better or worse. Sickness and health. And so it is that as I stagger to a stop, lungs grating in my suddenly too small chest, you are there. I reach out, searching for that solid reassurance, and let myself lean a little of my weight against you as I pull in air. Other runners pass, a cyclist, walkers in brisk ones and striding twos. But you wait, as I let my breathing ease, let me be unhurried, let me recover my legs, my hand against your solid strength, feeling the pulse of you beneath palm and thumb and all four fingers, letting mine slow towards it, anchoring myself to you, again. A warmth creeps up my calves, my thighs, my trunk, a post-run glow, and on my bare arms my skin turns to the echo from you, the pores like a thousand sunflowers, finding, in that shared warmth between us, a welcome. I let my shoulder lean into you, feel the soft give in your skin, the hard strength beneath, and think about how you need both, to survive in this world. Strength and flex. We’ve done a lot of that, over the years. Survived so much, me flying in great arcs which stretch away, and away, till it looks for all the world that I have set myself adrift, and then, listing, turning, returning, to you, your deep rooted assurance, your promise that all will be as it should, whether I rush or take rest, in the end. And you? I trace the lines of my name, the date we met, etched on your skin, the lines softer edged that they once were, a testament to how you have grown around me, around everything that has come, never falling, never fleeing, always growing, flex and strength. I have learnt so much since that date, changed so much. I rest my head against you, letting, I hope, the gratitude haloing my mind bleed into your body, and feel, in return, sheltered from any storm. Not everything has changed.
By Hannah Moore2 years ago in Fiction
Dead Leaves. Top Story - October 2023.
It is not autumn itself that's the problem. No, I love autumn, with its energising climate after the alternating fug and disappointment of the English summer, its warm colours glowing in lowering sun, its iconography of harvest bounty and shenanigans in the borderlands between this world and the next. Potion brewing and tree hugging and pulling in to the nest, I have to say, it suits me well. Except. When I go to see the dentist, the smell of the waiting room makes me want to run. The airport feels only marginally less stifling than the plane, and the anticipation of a dreaded meeting is as unsettling as the meeting itself.
By Hannah Moore2 years ago in Confessions
Indian Summer
October 1st, and the first of Chloe Rose Violet's October writing prompts (see the link at the bottom). Will I do every one? Almost certainly not. That's no reason not to do this one though. - A poem about the month of October, as I sit here in the balmy UK, an hour after sunset and all my windows still open.
By Hannah Moore2 years ago in Poets
"You must let what happens happen"
This story is part of the Vocal + Assist on Facebook Lost in a Story Challenge. You can learn more about it here: Something happened when I grabbed that jar off Clare, because as I twisted the lid, I felt a pop, and for a millisecond, thought I’d opened it. But it was just my arse hitting the mud.
By Hannah Moore2 years ago in Fiction
A Very Gallant Gentleman
The roaring wind pushed and pulled at the canvas of the tent where the four men lay, far from warm, in their reindeer hide sleeping bags. Two of the party were writing in the dim light that filtered through the canvas, accompanied by the soft snores of the third, but the fourth, with his back to the others, simply stared at the filthy fabric a few inches from his frozen nose. Stared, and wondered. Lawrence tried not to think about the pain, seeping through his body, creeping from toes and fingers like a poison towards his core. He tried not to imagine the blackened flesh he knew he would find beneath his stiff, stinking socks. He didn’t need to imagine the pain of a surgeon’s knife or the work of finding new ways to use his body to compensate for what was now missing. No, he did not imagine the horror on a nurse’s face as she unbandaged him in the clean, logical order of a medical room somewhere far away from here. He had no cause to imagine these things, as he did not think it would come to pass.
By Hannah Moore3 years ago in Fiction
Ripples
This is for Jazzy Goncalves filthy haiku challenge, linked here, in which we are invited to write a haiku celebrating the joy of sex. I love the positivity of Jazzy's challenges, and I appreciate the encouragement to turn our gaze upon the good stuff, give it a bit of space in our thoughts, word it into being more solid, more accessible, more noticed, more witnessed.
By Hannah Moore3 years ago in Filthy
Eating with my fingers
This is my entry for the Vocal Social Society Challenge Haiku Honey. Perhaps it is about honey. Or perhaps it is about peach juice. Or thawing ice cream. It could be about meat sauce, or perhaps about gravy. Or it could be about something else. Most likely, it is about all of the things. It is about hedonism and abandonment to appetite. We don't need to sit down for this one, its quick and easy, at the sink, on the grass, wherever suits, but it will leave us sticky.
By Hannah Moore3 years ago in Poets
