Selected Poetry by Preston Ham

Photo Source: Unsplash

Dazed Spade

Her daughter asked her if she wanted

a drink of water before the trip

home. Margaret didn’t know

the right answer. She had recently suffered

a stroke and fallen down

a steep set of stairs and now lived

in a wheelchair, with an expression

as stiff as a creek, her mouth

and cheeks like the swollen bottom

of a spade. She could still say yes and

no, so she said yes in the form

of a question. Then she said no in the same

form. Her daughter undid the cap

to a small plastic bottle and

dribbled a songbird sip

into a corner of Margaret’s mouth. Her husband’s

body had just been picked up and taken

to be incinerated. We made plans,

while she sat indifferent, to spill ashes

at his favorite wild huckleberry patch.

I Am Still Not Sure

how I sit at the edge

of the bed each morning,

my hands on my knees

how that single frog croaks

a solid out of nothing like hoarfrost

forming white garlands on branches

if I have ever experienced tenderness,

or any slight gesture I imagine feels

like a song more breath than voice

why exit wounds are larger

than their counterpart and why

love, both the tender in mercy kind

and the shaky, snarled lip kind,

works the same.

Preston Ham is a poet, photographer, and school psychologist in Washington State where he has the privilege of helping students who are often marginalized navigate physical, social, and emotional boundaries. He finds inspiration in the narratives we construct about ourselves and how we can shape those narratives to affect change in our mental health. He is a graduate of the Eastern Washington University MFA program. His poems have been published or are upcoming in Braided Way, Sybil, Thimble Literary Magazine, and Abstract Magazine. He was nominated for the Orison Books 2025 Best Spiritual Literature Anthology.