rare non-millay poem post

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

-Elizabeth Bishop, "One Art"

Hanna

Fourth-place winner in the poll.

This is-- an unusual story for me. I guess it is essentially the Slave Breakers version of your classic "break the spitfire" slavefic, which-- despite the title of my universe-- is not a fic I write. I guess partly I just wanted to see if I could pull it off. Y'all will have to let me know.

Also, it's very spare and somewhat disjointed, you'll note; I wrote it this way, intending to go back later and fill in more details, a more specific timeline, etc., but then read back over it and decided (I hope rightly) that it works the way it is, as a subjective picture of Hanna's experience of this time.




( I might be able to offer you a third option. )