Tuesday poem #662 : Jessie Jones : Concurrent girlhood

 

 

No no no. Not clapping
yet. Not heart broken pout
upon fist making masterpiece
of profile. Faces for cameos. Flung
back into bed leaden, so heavy
the ache. But passing
fast. Capable of hurting
much and many, finding it funny.
Where were we? Laughing
at a breakable clasp, how dare it
try to close us. Attentive
as a devil to the sensual.
Oh, we can flare and dance
ourselves, deploy talismanic
head tilts, knowing intelligence
is largely still. Listening?
Oh, sure. It doesn’t pain, the raucous
swallowing, a typist’s talent
for noting such things. But when
it drops so do we. Then comes a poise
like sleep. Until our haircuts hit
the pillow, we won’t know we’ve held
our breath. Yes
yes yes. There’s looking
back and there’s what it is. 

 

 

 

Jessie Jones is the author of one poetry collection, The Fool, which was published in 2020 with icehouse poetry, and was shortlisted for the Raymond Souster Award and a finalist for the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry. She grew up in the prairies and now lives in Montreal.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #661 : Lisa McCabe : The Friendly Giant

 

 

Look up, waay up, the big black boot,
Friendly’s on the CBC,
the drawbridge drops across the moat,
you watch in rapt credulity 

then run to claim the rocking chair
and curl up by the cheery fire;
his little friends will meet you here,
heralded by lute and lyre. 

You catch your breath —this feels like home;
Friendly reads on afternoons
to Rusty Rooster and Jerome,
the jazzy cats and two raccoons. 

While you (for now) are not afraid;
the thing you fear is out of view,
yet gathers to a furtive shade
that keeps a steady eye on you. 

Paper stars dot paper sky,
paper cow jumps paper moon,
your little pals all wave goodbye
as Friendly pipes the closing tune; 

leaving you to brood upon
why it is you linger there
(the grown-up shows drone on and on
well after Friendly’s off the air) 

with a gnawing sense of doom —
how with its drink and Export A,
the dragon in the other room
will call to you to come and play. 

It takes a puff and files its nails,
it has no business but to wait;
you draw your sword— your courage fails,
you bang against the castle gate.

 

 

 

 

Lisa McCabe reads and writes in Chester, Nova Scotia. She has published poems and essays in a variety of print and online journals, including the Sewanee Review, THINK, Bad Lilies, Rat’s Ass Review, Ekphrastic Review, and the Dark Horse Magazine. She has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

 

 

Tuesday poem #660 : Holly Loveday : Balcony

 

 

The ideal temperature for sleep  

is around eighteen degrees.  

Your hands are warmer than that. 

Pad over the lip of the sliding door. 

A bird hurls into an inset of the gutter 

shuffles around up there in the roof slats. 

An invitation to watch brown 

leaves, mulch, shift.  

Wind architects the balcony,  

presses the railings, lifts under the ferns. 

And responsive, they burble like the hem  

of my skirt from this morning 

when the neighbour waved us down.  

We were in sight of the window. She peered  

at us. I kissed you. 

Her screen door still cracked, now. 

This breeze is your three-part exhale 

running liquid up your ribs. 

You are right that she’s just lonely. 

 

Then a wheeze, breaking static. 

An engine, many engines on another side of the city. 

A voice in Spanish; downy, hushed. 

The floor below. I don’t know anyone  

who rides a motorcycle here. Cold start. 

The fumes grey then alabaster, I imagine. 

Slow night hoping that others are awake. 

The view back behind me, 

clotheshorse spread open, 

our clothes as jewellery, whites, dry and creaky. 

A palette. I turn, cramping feet.

 

 

 

 

Holly Loveday is a poet who lives between Hackney, Tipperary, and Victoria, BC. Holly's poetry draws on issues of class, social mobility, and cultural alienation with respect to her joint upbringing. She recently completed her MFA at the University of Victoria on unceded Songhees, Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ land.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan