Tuesday poem #490 : Robbie Chesick : Counting what Comes Before One

 

 

 

Today I bet on beauty
weighting the roulette wheel of attention
to favour the rotor’s deft funnel
with a still of the delrin pill of my inner eye
the win settles into a red pocket numbered
nine terns taking flight from the tundra
as the croupier like a hollering kettle unsnaps the dark
undressing a dawn of suede petals
dropping pink around six squirrels
digging holes to their antipodes
and to you extending two arms towards me, and to the sky
infiltrating my lungs, with its one wish
to know itself
for a breath

 

 

 

Robbie Chesick (she/her) lives in Vancouver, BC, on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples. She works as a clinical counsellor, writing poems in stolen moments for her own delight. Her poetry has been published in Vallum Magazine, Poetry Pause, Event (forthcoming) and Brine, a collaborative chapbook from the HC5 collective (2022). 

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan