The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: The Night Is What It Eats by Danielle Hanson

This feature, chosen by Guest Editor EMDASH, is from The Night Is What It Eats by Danielle Hanson (Codhill Press 2026).

Aphorisms for Lips

One lip is the reflection of the other.

Two lips are a rose.

Lips attack in pairs. He should never have approached them.

Lips are tongue-tamers.

Lips try to learn from the teeth how to bite.

Lips spread like honey across her face.

He studied her lips but forgot how to read.

Two lips eloped.

Lips ran to the ears with the news.

Two feral lips peeked out from the beard.

A lip is a trap for pray.

He went to the very lip of her lip and fell in.

Lips cushioned his fall.

Danielle Hanson (she/her) is author of The Night Is What It Eats (Elixir Press Prize), Fraying Edge of Sky (Codhill Press Poetry Prize), and Ambushing Water (Finalist, Georgia Author of the Year), and editor of the poetry anthology Objects in This Mirror (Press 53) and a book of literary criticism. She is Marketing Director for Sundress Publications, inaugural Poet Laureate of Costa Mesa, California, and Writer-in-Residence at UC Irvine.

EMDASH a.k.a Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) (she/they) is a poet-who-also-writes-fiction, educator, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve received support from LAMBDA, McCormack Writing Center, Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Chinese American Museum of LA, Jersey City Arts Council and more. She has learned as much from community organizing and open mics as she did from her Rutgers-Newark MFA in Poetry. They’re published in Poetry Northwest, ANMLY, Alocasia, Underblong and elsewhere. She proudly hosted, produced, and curated The Word Bookstore Open Mic for two years.