Tuesday poem #523 : Tara Borin : TO THE SLEEP CLINICIAN REVIEWING MY CPAP DATA 600 KM AWAY

 

 

Across the distance, you peer
into my bedroom,

interpret the downloaded data:
significant drop

in the number of events experienced.
Nancy, what counts as an event?

Is it only when my airway folds
wetly upon itself, breath interrupted,

or is it also a child coming into my bed
again, to sleep?

I fear I’ll never break them
of this habit, Nancy.

Do you have kids? Do you also fear
what will become of them  

once the relentless world takes hold?
They grow up

and away, but for now,
my child wakes each night

and slips quietly into my room.
Perhaps it’s the soft sighs

of the machine, pressing me open,
snores silenced.

Did you notice a pause
as I held my breath

to make myself smaller
so that they might fit beside me

 

 

 

Tara Borin is a poet and writer living in the traditional territory of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, Dawson City, Yukon. Their debut full-length poetry collection, The Pit, was published by Nightwood Editions in March 2021; their poetry has been anthologized in the League of Canadian Poets Feminist Caucus in Conversation chapbook (LCP Press, 2022), Resistance: Righteous Rage in the Age of #MeToo (University of Regina Press, 2021) and Best New Poets in Canada 2018 (Quattro Books), as well as published in various literary journals both online and in print. Tara is the 2022 winner of the BC and Yukon Book Prizes Borealis Prize: Commissioner of Yukon Award for Literary Contribution.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan