Poetry by Ivy Hoffman
EVERYONE HAS CANCER

Today at camp, the kids write Andrea
Gibson quotes on paper and fold them into

airplanes. One of the kids asks me how to spell
cancer, waving his arms, a cloud

in his hand. When I was a child
we did this too, a different

beautiful body turned into
poetry. I help him sound it out,

the word a conflagration
on my tongue. Last night you sat

at my kitchen counter and I held
you in my palms. I mean to say

I love you. That we can live
with this fire.

I will write about it
and we can watch it fly.

Ivy Hoffman is a poet from Wilmington, Delaware, whose work has appeared in publications such as Rattle, HOOT Review, and The American Poetry Review. She is currently studying literature at Swarthmore College, where she received the 2024 Nathalie F. Anderson Prize for poetry.

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