case study while running – by Hailey Gross

a hawk circles the air above me—defying

everything i know of motion—this body

cracks now each morning, night

has its own aches—you’re too

young to feel this way

they say i carry

the weight of everything

on my shoulders—i have friends

that can’t wait to be pregnant

and ask if i’m next—

think about carrying it—letting it walk

away—think about my mother, her mother

about the body and where bones

come from—think about healing

things about legs that tear—

spread like clouds through

the night sky—wounds

that open again in the morning—

think about running from it

running out of breath, trying

to find it in the wind.

a man grips his binoculars

to see the hawk better, moves

closer to study her

movements. i watch—wonder

what else he needs to know

but this.

she opens her wings—

……………….the world around her moves.

Hailey Gross is a poet, editor, and first-generation college student from Los Angeles. She earned her B.A. in English Literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara. A recipient of the Sarah B. Marsh-Rebelo Scholarship for Poetry and the Prebys Poetry and Creative Writing Endowed Scholarship, she is currently an MFA in Creative Writing: Poetry student at San Diego State University. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in the Laurel Review, Harpur Palate, and the Los Angeles Review. 

31 July 2023