Kate Hutchinson

Rage Against Invisibility

Your ability to see is sometimes only as good as                                                                               
your willingness to go unseen.                                                                                             
  - Meghan Daum, The Unspeakable                                                                                         

Not quite into your
dotage, you retain the occasional ability
to make others believe you exist – to
appear as more than vapor. Most see
just a woman, generic as porridge, who is
on the cusp of crepe paper. Sometimes,
you admit, a second cardigan is the only
refuge on this breezy verandah as
your curfew fizzles. Pure oxygen is as good as
sex or Jazzercize in the afternoon anymore. Your
leopard-print Fridays long gone, only a willingness
to attempt yet another waltz across the terrazzo, to
maintain your legendary ginger tongue, to not go
gently into that good nightclub, will keep you from being unseen.

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Kate Hutchinson spent 35 years teaching poetry to teenagers and is now very happy to have time to write more of her own.  She's had many poems and creative essays published and recognized over the years and is the author of 2 collections, The Gray Limbo of Perhaps (2012) and Map Making: Poems of Land and Identity (2015).  Kate is active with several poetry organizations locally and state-wide and has adapted well to Zoom open mics in the last year.