Don't call it hope or you'll scare it away by Candace Kronen

One Poem Only · Jan 21, 2026 · 1m

Don't call it hope or you'll scare it away

Candace Kronen

Call it window or thread or undone button, call it plump lips

and the slip of a sound, open palm with a single split seed

whispers of paw prints in a blanket of snow, baby hairs

and broccoli sprouts, call it half hug of a parenthesis,

handprint in the cave, defiant little fiddlehead

pushing through the dirt, call it a clearing

of the throat, first stroke of a bow, call it

Asha call it Violet call it Chekhov’s

smoking gun, call it Holmesian

pipe with a fresh tobacco tin,

pink streak of aurora

squinting through the

clouds, call it…