Tuesday poem #297 : Taryn Hubbard : Inventory Bush

This morning landscapers shaved the south side of the cedars so we could see in and nothing could hide again, and shopping bags candy wrappers beer cans water bottles cigarette butts cigarette wrappers Tim Hortons cups socks papers posters for lost cats condoms gum bottle caps burger wrappers lighters crayon drawings by little kids glass shards liquidation flyers cheap rubbish removal ad strands of hair coffee cup lids and razors flee from phantom underbrush onto sidewalk, and this debris will be swept away and the cuts on the limbs could be counted and maybe they have rings too to mark the years these bushes served as a community’s container, but what’s left are skinny sticks that jut. 

Taryn Hubbard’s poetry, fiction, reviews, and interviews have appeared or are forthcoming in journals and anthologies such as Canadian Literature, Room, The Capilano Review, Canadian Woman Studies, CV2, filling Station, Rusty Toque, Poetry is Dead, and others. She lives and writes in B.C.’s Fraser Valley, and has been a member of Room magazine’s editorial board since 2012. Her first full-length poetry collection is forthcoming in 2020.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan