This selection, chosen by guest editor Amber Alexander, is from Naming the Ghost by Emily Hockaday, released by Cornerstone Press in 2022.
The Ghost Is Water
My father’s death has shaken my mortality loose. Within me it sifts down like salt, and my sanity is water. They say these are the building blocks of life; I alternate between feeling electrically alive and disassociated. Let my fear fall away like petals. Let my body show its colors and choose what to do with me after all. Am I permitted to stay here? With this baby and my spouse? The ghost lurks outside the window tonight, a haze around the full glow of the moon.
Emily Hockaday’s second collection, In a Body, is forthcoming with Harbor Editions October 2023. Her first full-length, Naming the Ghost, debuted with Cornerstone Press in September 2022. She is the author of six poetry chapbooks, and her poems have appeared in print and online journals, as well as with the Poets of Queens and Parks & Points’ Wayfinding anthologies. Emily writes about ecology, parenthood, chronic illness, grief, and the urban environment.
Amber Alexander, who publishes creative work as e. holloway, is a poet based in Ohio. They currently work in higher education and as an Assistant Editor for Best Of The Net within Sundress Publications. Alexander is a former Editorial Intern for Sundress Publications, former Editorial Board Member for Cornfield Review, and was a Sundress Academy for The Arts Writing Resident in 2023. Their work has been published by Cornfield Review and earned multiple awards during undergrad at The Ohio State University.
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