Live Encounters Poetry & Writing April 2026
A Hand Is a Fist that Won’t Open with Regret, poems by Dianna Henning.
A Hand Is a Fist
that Won’t Open with Regret
Many years ago. She came to us. We passed her back and forth
between us. Lovely child, cinnamon scented child.
You handed her to me. I passed her back to you. We shared her
as one does a treasure, ever so carefully.
Who knew of storms? Of divorce and recriminations?
And what would happen to her in that thicket of trouble?
We forgot we were parents. Married too young.
Now I’m an old woman and long for my daughter.
The cinnamon scented child.
But a hand is a fist that won’t open with regret.
I reach out to hold her, but only dimwitted air
greets me. I am a longing with arms that ache,
a memory of past mistakes.
Who are you, daughter of long ago? Are you a walk? Am I a runner?
All night the portable fan
clips the dissenting air,
and a breeze smelling of wet chalk,
sidestrokes through
an open window.
Outside, frog colonies down by the pond
sing their mating songs
before slipping back
into comfy beds of mud.
Spittle ekes from the scaffolding
of my mouth
onto the hand-embroidered
pillowcase
given me in my youth.
It seeps into my splayed hair,
each strand stiffened.
Someone sleeps beside me.
He’s the man I’m married to.
He’s less dangerous
than the lovers who took
my expectant breath,
bottled it in green jars,
and sold it on the black market
for a mere pittance.
My husband struggles with nightmares,
kicks me in his sleep.
I strangle him with my blood.
Who sleepwalked
with the Milky Way,
drunk on distance, its expanse?
I wanted to write with a torch
but ended up
with a pencil with no eraser.
Because the sky
turns contagious with stars,
nighttime is best
viewing that dust
which becomes us.
I want my ashes
to create their own planet.
One where people,
or whatever life forms exist,
live in peace.
I cannot cry for what we are.
But I am saddened by what we are not.
© Dianna Denning
Dianna Henning received California Arts Council grants, taught poetry workshops for William James Association’s Prison Arts Program. Some publications: Poet News, Sacramento CA, 2025 & 2026; Blue Heron Review 2025; California Quarterly; Women in a Golden State, 2025; The Power of the Feminine Vol. II; The Tule Review; California Quarterly; 2023; Artemis Journal, 2021, 2022, 2023 and The Adirondack Review. 2021 Nomination by The Adirondack Review for a Pushcart Prize. Nominations from Blue Heron Review for a Pushcart Prize 2024 & 2025. MFA in Writing ’89, Vermont College. Henning’s “When Body Becomes House” short-listed in Madville Publishing’s 2025 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize. Dianna facilitates the Thompson Peak Writers’ Workshop. Henning’s new book “Rucksacks for the Leaf Cat” just released from Finishing Line Press.