Hannah Hodgson

The Mark Holland Trust

We wait to soften as vegetables must
in boiling water. The room so tiny

we jostle like circles of carrot, talking physio,
nutrition, drugs, pneumonia, the ring of white  

soon to appear on my brain scan.
We’re told not to catastrophise

while we are boiled. Emotions seep out
like vitamins, soon to be discarded

down the plughole. The room is steaming,
and soon we’re dumped into the colander of home –

 wet and fragile, separate entities
without the cohesive element of water.  

Simply garnished, this body is ready for consumption.

Hannah Hodgson is a poet living with a life limiting illness. Her work has been published by BBC Arts, The Poetry Society and Magma amongst others. Where I’d Watch Plastic Trees Not Grow was published by Verve Poetry Press in Feb 2021. Her first collection is due from Seren in 2022.