by Angela Hoffman

I’m held like a duck when I float on the water.
Arms outstretched like a hawk
I am humbled by something greater.  
On a bike, I balance like a bird on a wire. 
Down on my knees, I surrender.
Goosebumps mean I have been touched by splendor. 
Wrinkles, sagging skin, age spots, a heart broken open 
bear evidence of having lived life, fully. 
An embrace, a caress to my face, a kiss on my forehead
assures I have been touched by love. 

A woman’s body bore these Mysteries under a cathedral 
of skin and bones.
My fragile body, pieces of dust in this universe beyond 
my understanding, is forever dying into something more. 

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Angela Hoffman’s poetry collections include Resurrection Lily (Kelsay Books, 2022) and Olly Olly Oxen Free (forthcoming, Kelsay Books, 2023). She placed third in the WFOP Kay Saunders Memorial Emerging Poet, 2022. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Solitary Plover, Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets’ Museletter and Calendar, Agape Review, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Your Daily Poem, Writing In A Woman’s Voice, Moss Piglet, Amethyst Review, Orchards Poetry Journal, POETiCA REViEW, Wilda Morris’s Poetry Challenge, and Lothlorien Poetry Journal. She has written a poem a day since the start of the pandemic. Angela lives in rural Wisconsin. 

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