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I was a kid other kids’
parents gossiped about.
They told their children
what I was: too negative.
I get it. Fair to fear
contagion of bad attitudes,
You’ve changed.
You used to be so
and now you’re all
like, you’ve transformed
I don’t know how to describe
it’s like
you don’t like canasta anymore
you text IN ALL CAPS
first you get the grease from canola buffalo
then you find mystery meat
you must package this in
Once, I slapped my sister with the back of my hand.
We were so small, but I wanted to know
how it felt: my hand raised high across
the opposite shoulder, slicing down like a trapeze.
Do you speak your language?
I stare — I just said: how are you?
I thought English was my language
apparently it isn’t
I thought Halkomelem was gibberish
the devil’s language
Two dicks, sitting in
my daughter’s inbox,
like men without hats,
waiting for any door
to open.
*
Sighting a stranger’s penis
“I saw my land in the morning
and O but she was fair”
- M.G. Smith, “Jamaica” (1938)
I
Come see my land
There, the bolting black kale,
taller than it has any right to be
and not the twitter troll who asked
if you were on your period.
In the corner, a pile of dead
zucchini leaves, spotted with rot
My dad taught me to never give out my real name, age,
address, or photos. This seemed obvious to me. My fake
birthday entry was always my crush's birthday plus a
recycling Dr. Seuss
Some fish are sold for sashimi,
some are sold to canneries,
and some are caught by hungry slaves
to feed what wealthy tourists crave!
What's it like at the centre of the AGO?
Hmm. Imagine being coloured, drawn, and placed
in a wooden frame, another hung woman, positioned
I wear a peineta & pin a mantilla to my hair
I want to be Conchita Piquer warning women
about becoming lemons. The goal: tener alguien
quien me quiera. I want to be my mother singing me
You can't be an NDN person in today's world
and write a nature poem. I swore to myself I would never write a nature
poem. Let's be clear, I hate nature — hate its guts
big ghosts contra
band my diction war
korea's north sees red as
america flags china's chopped limb
british crowns hong kong
cut for duplicity more capitalist than capitalist
i can barely speak in my mother tongues stutter
my accent is bad
i hate jalebi
but i like aloo samosa
i'm a bad brown
girl i didn't join the
SAA or the ISA
it’s rank it cranks you up
crash you’re fracked you suck
shucks you’re wack you be
all you cracked up to be
dead on arrival
overdosed on whatever
excess of hate and love
What I adore is not horses, with their modern
domestic life span of 25 years. What I adore
is a bug that lives only one day, especially if
it’s a terrible day, a day of train derailment or
A single flow’r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet—
before i start i want to say you shouldn’t blame yourself
there’s no point in beating around the bush
there’s something we need to talk about
this is the most difficult thing i’ve ever had to tell anyone
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i
At the heart there is a hollow sun
by which we are constructed and undone
Let’s say the fix was in. Let’s say history, Being human and thus short on ideas, Made change from an old bag of tricks. Say this
(a twelve-tone poem)
trite yap show
rosy twit heap
Random Link Clicker.
Royal Bath Taker.
Receiver of Foot Rubs and Praise.
I told her, in plain language, how I felt.
And by that I mean I mumbled a poorly
paraphrased and…
Queen and King, they rule side by side
in golden thrones above the clouds.
Her giggle and wide eyes remind him
GOODLOOKING BOY wasn’t he / yes/ blond /
yes / I do vaguely
/ you never liked
These poems, these poems,
these poems, she said, are poems
with no love in them. These are the poems of a man
Down from the purple mist of trees on the mountain,
lurching through forests of white spruce and cedar,
stumbling through tamarack swamps…
When daisies pied and violets blue
And lady-smocks all silver-white
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
A race that can’t stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move,
Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
