Darlene Young

To Hope

When you pray, do not hope—it would be hope for the wrong thing.

 —T.S. Eliot (“East Coker” in Four Quartets)

Those feathers have given you an awfully big head.

I see you, flitting around like a gnat, full

of yourself. I know it's you who lurks

at the back of refrigerators, plays hide-and-seek

with stock-brokers and psychiatrists. Your fingerprints

are all over every home pregnancy test. Sleazy siren,

you walk every woman to the door of her salon,

but often abandon her there.

The fitness equipment market is your church.

For you, old ladies and writers still hike to their mailboxes,

bachelors vacuum their cars.

Cheat, you stole whole months of my childhood,

not to mention all of puberty. Turns out

it was you I was in love with at sixteen

and not my boyfriend Mike. Shameless,

the way you haunt waiting rooms and singles' bars.

You siphon my focus from my teenager to his grades,

from my work to a browser. You are only

what isn't there, and I'm tired of squinting,

finished with feathers. I'm here now,

looking for something solid to stub my toe on,

something smooth and chunky like a pumpkin

that won't drift away with each exhale.

Here. Now.

Darlene Young is the author of three poetry collections (most recently, Count Me In from Signature Press, 2024). She teaches writing at Brigham Young University and has served as poetry editor for Dialogue and Segullah journals. Her work has been noted in Best American Essays and nominated for Pushcart Prizes. She lives in South Jordan, Utah. Find more about her at darlene-young.com and @darlylar.