Do Not Disturb

Photo by Stephanie Hanno Photography

A Poem by Hannah Christmas

Our home, a quiet zone.

Let’s hide away in the campground

of our backyard tonight.

I'll put up the tent, you can 

start the fire. We'll sit around

the noise of streets beyond trees 

drowned by the crackling 

of a crumbling log.

We've made a pocket for ourselves

where the world is made quiet,

while the world itself 

remains in our pockets; 

the sunset outside is all 

that's been invited in.

A blazing atmosphere becomes

our tent, the comfort of its shade

drawing our gaze away from flames,

except embers, red in the sky.

Hannah Christmas is a Kansas City native, living on the Missouri side of the state line, where she is a wife and mother of three. Her writing has recently appeared in The Clayjar Review, The Way Back to Ourselves, and Prosetrics Literary Magazine. More of her work can be found on her Substack, https://hannahchristmas.substack.com/. When she’s not writing, she’s likely to be reading a work of fiction, or knitting the same blanket she’s been working on all year.