Tuesday poem #656 : Eva Haas : After you I walk through the desert, pretend I’m a pilgrim

 

 

I am a woman in the same way
a skull in the desert remains a deer. You can hear
echoes of the sky in me. I spend
many nights drinking from cacti, contemplating disaster.
I try not to remember your hips in my lap
like milk in a spoon. 

One day I become sane again – or something
just like it – and come to a crack in the earth, see your face
on a billboard for skin smoothing cream. I can barely feel
my cratered cheeks. I thought after the end
there should be nothing left, not even
a delirious advertisement. But the sky still flickers
with purple thunder, plays reruns
of the charm on your neck. 

 

 

 

 

 

Eva Haas is a queer artist and poet originally from Ktaqmkuk (St. John's, Newfoundland). She has recently completed a BA in Writing at the University of Victoria and her term as Victoria's eleventh Youth Poet Laureate. Her work has been a finalist for competitions at CBC, Room and Frontier, and can be found in The Malahat Review and Riddle Fence.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan