Tuesday poem #676 : Misha Solomon : Aubade with a Shorkie in the Bed Between Us

 

Early light comes
through the blinds
unreplaced by
the blackout shades
we said but didn't buy
we said we'd
never have the dog
in bed but here
he is a sighing curl.
I reach my arm
over him to rub
my lover's arm
an arm that holds
my lover's phone
a phone filled
with bad news.
We said we'd say
no phones in bed
but here's
the arm I rub
he and the dog
notice my arm
in tandem he smiles
the dog licks
my elbow. We said
the dog would
kill the bed
but with a gentle
shove the dog's asleep
at our feet my arm
unlicked but roaming
searching for
the early heat.

 

 

 

Misha Solomon is a homosexual poet in and of Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. He is the author of two chapbooks, FLORALS (above/ground press, 2020) and Full Sentences (Turret House Press, 2022), and his work has recently appeared in Best Canadian Poetry, Arc Poetry Magazine, Geist, The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, and Riddle Fence. His debut full-length collection, My Great-Grandfather Danced Ballet, is out this month with Brick Books. He is currently a student in Concordia University’s Interdisciplinary Humanities PhD program.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #675 : Susan Robertson : I BEGIN THE POEM WITH A LIE

 

 

Red bird
in a dark wood, 

a silhouette— 
you, the tree— 

your red 

the only colour
in the green.

 

 

 

Susan Robertson grew up outside Washington, D.C. but has made her home in Canada for years. Her poems have appeared in journals in Canada and the United States including Prairie Fire, the Offing, Grain, HAD, The Ex-Puritan, and The Fiddlehead. Her chapbook, So I Go, is out with Baseline Press.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #674 : Dana Teen Lomax : -gender-and-all-the-shit-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dana Teen Lomax's work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, published and anthologized internationally, recognized as among the Guerrilla Girls’ favorite books, and received awards from Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Intersection for the Arts, the Academy of American Poets, the California Arts Council, the Marin Arts Council, and others. She collaborates with artists from all over the country, has taught writing in libraries, schools, prisons, and universities, served as the interim Director at Small Press Traffic and the Human Rights and Equity Chair for her teachers’ union. Dana lives near Los Angeles, and her work can be found at danateenlomax.com.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #673 : Frances Cannon : Litmus test

 

How are you doing, humans? 
Did you know that litmus is made from lichens? 

We all gather in a coffee shop and pretend to work,
alone together in our procrastination.  

Rage is all the rage. While traversing a zebra crossing,
I’m nearly hit by a car, on purpose, by a hetero family 
with two kids in the backseat. The father 
rolls down his window and shouts
            WHY ARE YOU SO SLOW?
Great example to set for your kids, Daddy. 

A huge German Shepherd runs at me in the woods—
I pick up my little mutt to protect her 
as the big dog leaps up to attack.
The shepherd’s owner sees me and yells,
            WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM? 
I have no answer for her, too confused 
by the source of her anger.  

In other moods, life’s perfect—at a literary event
in an old church that smelled of wood smoke, 
ghosts, and dead mice, I wonder 
what the Baptist founders would think 
of two lesbians cuddling and doodling 
in a stiff wooden pew 
while listening to satirical, secular poetry. 

I accidentally tell my new girlfriend I love her 
by describing a dream in which her face drifted apart, 
one feature at a time, floating outwards. 

I gather monthly with a moon coven
to throw shit into the fire, tell secrets, and complain about men. 
One friend calls in from Bolivia; her pixelated face 
an uncanny backdrop to the flames. Our hushed confessions 
are interrupted by the neighbors’ dance party—
a group of raucous, drunk, joyous men. 
The one secret I don't voice to my witches: 
I would rather dance next door.  

Franky (Frances) Cannon is a writer, editor, educator, and artist based in Edinburgh, Scotland and Burlington, Vermont. She is the Reviews Editor for Poetry Wales, an editorial reader for The Kenyon Review, and an affiliated scholar at Kenyon College, where she recently completed the Mellon Science and Nature Writing Fellowship. She has an MFA in creative writing from Iowa and a BA from the University of Vermont. She is the author and illustrator of several books: Walter Benjamin Reimagined (MIT Press), Fling Diction (Green Writers Press), Willow and the Storm (Green Writers), Tropicalia (Vagabond), The Highs and Lows of Shapeshift Ma and Big-Little Frank (Gold Wake), Sagittaria (Bottlecap), Predator/Play (Ethel), Uranian Fruit (Honeybee), and Grotto, (above/ground). She will have four books published in 2026: Bitten by the Lantern Fly (Ethel);  Queer Flora, Fauna, Funga (Valiz), Adventitious Buds (Green Writers) and her novel Vernal Thaw (Set Margins').

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan