Franziska Hofhansel
poetry
Franziska Hofhansel is a poet and fiction writer with an MFA from the University of Montana. She is the author of the chapbook Sorry to Miss You (Dead Mall Press) and her writing has been featured in Gone Lawn, Poetry is Currency, After Happy Hour Review, and elsewhere. Currently she lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she is working on her first novel.
Blueprint for a House in Rural Maine That Is Meant to Be an Exact Copy of Another House That Was Destroyed in a Fire
Everyone has already said this to you: you can never return anywhere to anyone. There is no place that awaits your arrival untouched. I can draw these lines for you. I can draw for you a simulacra of that which you most desire. I can draw you line after line. I can make the lines kiss. I can make them touch each other and I can make them almost touch each other which is almost better than touching: everyone knows this. What I cannot do for you is to return that which has been taken. I cannot make legible the violence of this world. I cannot give you a map of everything wrong. What would such a thing even look like? There would be lines everywhere and they would all be touching.
“ Part of my job is drawing floor plans, elevations and sections of people's homes—or at least the homes that various architects envision for them. I spend a lot of time thinking about what it means to create a home, the ways that people attempt to return to the past by customizing every last detail of their house. Unfortunately, 'home' is something that can't be bought.”