Desire Lines
Danielle Harms | Poetry
I. STATUS QUO
A guy once told me
that if I could define the stakes
more clearly
then I might really
have something
in these pages
about
my little
miscarriage.
II. CALL TO ACTION
If I could clarify
the inciting incident
he might find his footing
in a narrative structure.
He could trace desire,
recognize change,
interpret what on Earth
motivates me.
III. RISING ACTION
Like the writer we admire,
who wrote about a stillbirth.
We cried in the audience:
a single beating heart,
surging along
metal folding chairs.
If I could sculpt a story
like that, I might
have something
real
to say.
III. ANTI CLIMAX
Instead let me present this dumb story about an early miscarriage with low stakes and
murky desires. Please accept this obsession with the horizon over Lake Michigan.
IV. CENTRAL CONFLICT
Make me believe
I can see apparitions
that are not there:
Icebergs in summer,
ghost ships levitating
above spring waters.
A wavering line
dividing
distance.
V. FALLING ACTION
I swear—\/
I swear—/\
I swear—\/
I can see land—/\
on the other side—\/
dissolving into—/\
a shipping container—\//\
a crash of waves—/\\//\
a flock of birds—\//\\//\
VI. RESOLUTION
Out the window: the lake.
I admire the vanishing point,
on a cloudy day,
How it announces
a this — …
a that — …
In the room: he calls it: a story,
Me: a protagonist.
But this is nonfiction—
I am a speaker.
The lake froze overnight—
A ribbon along the shore.
The panes of ice shatter
with every pulsing wave.
Danielle Harms writes from Wisconsin, where she is an Assistant Teaching Professor at Marquette University. She has a PhD from UW-Milwaukee and was Cream City Review‘s nonfiction editor. Her work is in Conjunctions, Short Reads, Fourth Genre, New Letters, and North American Review. Her writing was listed as Notable in the 2023 Best American Essays