poem

Hannah’s a Hematoma

by Matthew Stuber

Her hibiscus dies. I watch for the hitch on the horizon. In half an hour, there’s a hesitation. The ochre of bleach on black, a human-shaped hole, rough and coughing. Hiss, hisses the water heater. Oh, how blood rushes from its veiny home, inhabits humble flesh, hibernates in sunshine, haunts in bruise. Sometimes humans heal. The hematoma hisses its hot death or is banished by white cells. Hannah’s a ghost now, I tell myself. A hiatus. A hushed azimuth hemorrhaging hard. The sunset’s blush. The heavy hydrogen of her ghost honeys my choroid. Her heaving bloodbath, humid, herds closer. Hiss, the water heater hisses, her breath catching on the coils. Hours march ahead. This happens, whimpered the funeral director a month ago, hushed, handing me the pamphlet in Helvetica. Tuesdays and Thursdays and the fringe of all the horrible months ahead behind. I can hear their haggard dash, those days less exhausted from their marathon. Every March without her. Every home is haunted, she had said. I took the hibiscus off her casket, brought it home. Hum of her humble housebound corpse stitched on the stratosphere. I’m a homebody too. Where am I? Hannah hisses, What happened? You’re so handsome tonight. Hold my hand? Palm hot on the chesnut windowsill, I hesitate. I can’t hear you, I say. Horizon hallucinating her formaldehyde flesh. A shuddering inhalation at the exhumation of her hovering heart. I shut the window. I can’t hear you, hisses the water heater. I can’t hear you.

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Matthew Stuber is a transgender Southern poet, raised and currently living in Louisville. He is a senior at UofL pursuing his BA in English, Creative Writing. His poem “Hannah’s a Hematoma” received second place in the 2025 Annette Allen Poetry Prize. Matthew's work is concerned with sonic and formal rigor, experimentation, embodied experience, injury, and environment.