Tuesday poem #45 : Brecken Hancock : LAKE EFFECT

Snow blinds the deer hearse.

Snow needles the blood purse.

Snow porridge in the hobo’s bowl.

Snow angels spread for ripper’s toll.

Dormers dripping toilet paper.

Castles of albino crows.

Amniotic impersonator.

Vomit stipples Mommy’s clothes.

Come snow, come sleep,

Bleach our red curtains

To surrender. O molester,

Put the animals to bed.

Bed the trees;

Rid us of forecast.

Calm the alabaster

Masts of dream.

Come dream, snow,

Bear in the cavern,

Rat in the cistern.

Every little chit in its hole.

Make us kid-glove clean again,

Intestines fresh from the fast.

Lay out your skin to swaddle our feet,

Snow Madonnas maquillaged in ash.

Brecken Hancock’s poetry, essays, interviews, and reviews have appeared in Riddle Fence, Event, CV2, Grain, and Studies in Canadian Literature. She is Reviews Editor for Arc Poetry Magazine and Interviews Editor for Canadian Women in the Literary Arts.The Art of Plumbing, her most recent chapbook, is out with above/ground press and her first full-length manuscript of poems, Broom Broom, is forthcoming with Coach House Books. She lives and walks dogs in Ottawa.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan