Poems

Poem for My Body

No one else rescued me. Not my father

or my brother or, years later, the gentle man

who became my husband. Not my mother

or my best friend or any of the women

who listened to me tell my story

Where did the handsome beloved go?

Where did the handsome beloved go?

I wonder, where did that tall, shapely cypress tree go?

He spread his light among us like a candle.

Where did he go? So strange, where did he go without me?

Pan Dulce

My niece calls me from my brother-in-law’s phone

While I’m getting ready to wash dishes. I pick up.

She says she needs to talk to her grandfather.

I tell her that her grandfather just went to sleep,

Kitchen Story

My mothers says she has something to tell me,

turns to me from the stove where potatoes

boil and bump in the pot

I stand still to hear, a bundle of forks

in my hand for the table

The Chimney Sweeper: When my mother died I was very young

When my mother died I was very young,

And my father sold me while yet my tongue

Could scarcely cry “‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep! ‘weep!”

Vancouver Lights

About me the night        moonless           wimples the mountains

wraps ocean      land    …

On the Boundaries of Treaty No. 6

commencing to the place of beginning;

emptying;

in 1959 the South Saskatchewan river was dammed;

forever altering the boundary of Treaty no. 6;

Sons of Orion

for Alton Sterling, Andrew Loku, Philando Castile, et al.

I wanna live, son. But which son are you?

   There where the rivers are made

of moonshine and the lights still wait,

Equinox Ritual with Ravens & Pines

— so we said to the somewhat: Be born —

     & the shadow kept arriving in segments, 

    cold currents pushed minerals

The First Day

When I was five I was put on a bus

and sent to Catholic school

not unlike my mother who was five

when she was put on a train

and sent to residential school,

both feeling that gut feeling

To the Ladies

Wife and servant are the same,

But only differ in the name:

For when that fatal knot is tied,

What the Queer Community Should Have Told Us

1. you are perfect

& also flawed

2. you are allowed to make mistakes

& you must be accountable for them

3. accountability is not a price you pay in blood

for being human

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,

And Mourners to and fro

Kept treading — treading — till it seemed

Let’s Not Get It Together

The world has become corrupted

from our hearts

to the way our gods love us

as if they know they’re already dying

and they’re determined to drag us down with them

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

In Praise of a Shadow

Source of echo

madman of prophecies

buffering nonsense

in absence of anything 

solid as cloud

flung

from the womb

pale pallid asteroid

belt of nanny goat

New Year’s

If you want to travel run

around the neighbourhood with an empty

suitcase in hand. At least once, full circle.

Wear yellow underwear

for the 31st, lest fortune oversee your cup

Conversion

sam says you can’t name your book good boys without a dog

but sam doesn’t know that i am the dog

i am the ultimate mutt and i am telling him this story

America (I’m Putting My Queer Shoulder to the Wheel)

The night America took off her mask

we slept together poorly. I'd woken up early

that Tuesday, dragged myself to a gymnasium

in Jersey City to cast my vote into the void.

Eclipse

In every which way, I am living

for potential. I’ve mined cadmium

enough to roulette with Death

and Mars, bloodshot brute,

is swollen in my honour.

My function is action —

to pummel through concrete

The Clouds are Buffalo Limping Towards Jesus

"weeping                 blooms

Letters

I threw away your letters.

Years ago, just like that.

The tight black swirls,

circles and strokes

filling fine sheets —

I would not see them again.

The last items I had left.

We Wear the Mask

We wear the mask that grins and lies,

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, —

This debt we pay to human guile;

Trillium

the animal in me

is constant.

thirst starts,

hunger answers.

sleep is uncertain,

restless limbs.

in the night,

I hear footsteps.

To an Athlete Dying Young

The time you won your town the race

We chaired you through the market-place;

Man and boy stood cheering by,

A Story from Easter: He Has Risen

There is a mouse under the sink

Little mouse turds around in the kitchen drawers

It is raining, storming

The refrigerator

has gone to the dump

Donald's back

has brought him to bed for several months

Let the Ponies Out

oh papa, to have you drift up, some part of you drift up through

water through

fresh water into the teal plate of sky soaking foothills, papa,

Bury Me in Arabic

“Morning of goodness to you”

— “Morning of goodnesses”

Or add flowers: “morning of roses”

Always multiply the gift—

“welcome” to “two welcomes”

“a hundred welcomes and kinship and ease”

Claim Laid

This is a prayer for the dead and dying - 

and those that may never know a life on the outside

I hope your sins don’t meet you at your grave - 

Mother Church #3

KIN KLETSO/YELLOW HOUSE

CHACO CANYON, SAN JUAN COUNTY, NEW MEXICO

ANASAZI RUINS, AD 1125-1130

For Henri, at 2

Ornithology

There's no time to think

about the feathered creature I'll become.

Time is an unsavored

mouthful. It's time who chews you up.

Yesterday I lost a bunch of feathers and

some teeth.

Cocteau Twins

I’ve heard the phrase between you

and me too many times to believe

it to be true, but between me and you

Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow

Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow,

Though thou be black as night

And she made all of light,

Hotel Centrale, Rotterdam

I am awake between stiff

sheets tonight in room thirty

four, listening to the heat

Dear Dolphin

The shaman at Broadway and Main

with a plastic shaker and some sage

says you’re my power animal. Says

we both have big brains, like to chatter.

I Have Something to Tell You

I’ve come to talk to you about shaving cuts

I was waiting across the road

right over there

for the light to turn

and you were on the other side

fumbling with change at the newspaper box

Closure

On the night we dug up your father’s body

(for reasons I can no longer remember)

we took turns with the shovel

as we passed a bottle of Whyte & Mackay

Lord of My Heart’s Elation

Lord of my heart’s elation,

Spirit of things unseen,

Be thou my aspiration

breakup

a girl between two dialects

still a screen and still a searching, learns

the season of breakup

another word for spring

can come before or after

depending on where you grew up

online, back and forth

Family Tree

    My imaginary brother speaks of our migration and history,
how time pulses like the green water
in the South Saskatchewan that sputters by our home,
success measured in how still he’d lie after wandering