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

 

Tuesday poem #672 : Christina Wells : You Are What You Eat

 

If you forestall the effort to stay tidy with your thinking, you might remember how fear does not live on a separate planet from awe. This is the wilderness we stand in.
— Sara Michas-Martin, Orion Magazine

There is no more inside you, or outside,
no separation between pure and toxic hearts,
only the wilderness we live in, wide-eyed

while microplastics crowd in on the tide,
doll arms, tampons, bearings from motor parts
that come to live inside you, and outside,

plastic breast milk, placenta, blood, fisherprice-ified,
plastic tap water, dust, toothpicks from Walmart—
this wilderness we live in, wide-eyed. 

The oceans are full of polyvinyl chloride
technicolour bath toy, wheel of a grocery cart
there is no more inside you, or outside. 

To save the species we created a synthetic landslide—
pool balls in teal, fuchsia combs, our attempt to unhurt
this wilderness we live in, wide-eyed. 

We collect neon sea plastic, stupefied
that daily we consume the amount of a credit card
There is no longer inside and outside,
in this new wild we stand in, wide-eyed.

 

 

 

Christina Wells (she/her) is a multi-genre writer from Northern Arm, Newfoundland/Ktaqmkuk. Her award-winning work, which explores memory and place, has appeared in The New Quarterly, ROOM, Riddle Fence, Horseshoe Magazine, and The Newfoundland Quarterly, with forthcoming work in the next issues of The Fiddlehead and Yolk. She recently completed an MA in Creative Writing at Memorial University and lives in St. John’s with her beautifully chaotic family and her angel dog.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan 

Tuesday poem #671 : Binoy Zuzarte : Margate (Golden Hour)

 

Dead algae and pheromone spice:
there’s a full circle
in the smell of low tide 

anointing arches in the throat
as Turner himself lays sun
like coins on the eyes. 

It’s quiet but for all this gold
you can’t take with you,
sky with room for just itself. 

In the foreground a towel
tied to the railing where stairs
enter the seascape— 

someone’s in the water.
For a moment before I get too close
it’s not impossibly you 

—a bell sounds seven and the spell
ends. Light unspools. I start
back toward a stuck door. 

Voices clink at Sargasso,
air purpling, the harbour’s arm
some comfort. Toast.

 

 

 

 

Binoy Zuzarte (he/him) is a writer and creative director. Recent poems appeared or will be found in Arc, Augur, and The Shore, as well as In-Between, an art show centred on the Canadian immigrant experience. He lives with his partner and their dog in Toronto, where he is working toward his first collection.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan