Angela Hoffman

All Folded

I can’t unsee me on my knees
shouting obscenities
wanting to strike you.
Who is this woman all crazy?
You knew exactly what would undo me
and I slid like a dress off its hanger
onto a pile of rage, shame, blame.

To keep myself from folding in
I practiced careful control
of every little detail, seam, crease
but this vigilance and perfection
offered no substance to the grief
draped under the guise of anger.

I had no choice but to let this messy self
be tucked in the bottom of a drawer.
There I was held in the dark, trans-formed.
I’ve slipped into something lovely.
I stand before the mirror, unabashed
about wearing my dress, full of wrinkles.

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 in 2022. She has written a poem a day since the start of the pandemic. Angela lives in rural Wisconsin.