Tuesday poem #133 : Jennifer Londry : Hitchcock’s flock

At night they hide in cupboards. Red and white

tins fall down.

They eat God.

He tastes like vanilla.

He goes down slow like the snake that eats the toad, the girl-moth drawn to cinder.  

In the neighbour’s basement

boy dance

a condom in his pocket to shame

her blond sugar.

Burnt sweets, virgin cigarette,

morning paralysis

pin in the eye, his purple song between her legs.

In the morning

she aborts through a window.

All the pretty boys she knows are ugly.

All the ugly boys she knows want to be pretty.          

Jennifer Londry is the author of three books of poetry: Life and Death in Cheap Motels, which was adapted for stage, After the Words, which was nominated for a Saskatchewan Book Award, and Tatterdemalion, newly published by Chaudiere Books. A featured reader at the 2009 Kingston Writers’ Festival and at the 2011 Sweetwater 905 in Northern BC, she has also facilitated and organized a literary event for Alzheimer’s Awareness. Jen has taught creative writing and recently was a judge for Words from the Street, a creative writing competition, which gives a voice to the downtrodden, in association with The Toronto Writers’ Collective. She is also a contributor to the anthologies: A Crystal through which Love Passes, Glosas for P.K. Page (Buschek Books, 2013), Where the nights Are twice As long, Love Letters of Canadian Poets (Goose Lane Editions, 2015), and has work forthcoming in the Alzheimer’s anthology, A Rewording Life, editor Diane Schoemperlen, creator Sheryl Gordon. Currently Jen is collaborating with the documentary filmmaker Sarah Turnbull at the Carleton School of Journalism and Communications to produce a mental health video.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan