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

Tuesday poem #659 : Sunnylyn Thibodeaux : I am the Ultimate Ozzler

 

 

Reading about Harry Crosby
and the changing of his wife
‘s name and the dead pigeons
around the neck, painted in red ochre
I wonder about the diamond lights
flickering pendant of sapphire ghost
Seven candles of gold leaf
How many lovers does it take
to get to the center of a good poet?
How many letters of request
for the trust fund to stay tapped
In and out of sheets, satin and marbled
I would’ve never left the studio
if I got a glimpse of ink on his feet 

 

 

 

Sunnylyn Thibodeaux is the author of five full length collections of poetry, as well as over a dozen small books including Witch Like Me from the Operating System. She is a teacher, neighborhood activist and tree enthusiast. She is the mother of a Scorpio and wife of a poet and splits her time between San Francisco and New Orleans. In 2026 City Lights will publish her selected poems.

The Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #658 : Ian Lockaby : Super Ego Holding

 

 

a-
          ccumulations
of us softening 

, braided in
through the fine hog 

furs running in-
ward our nipples to
milk ducts    of our hearts 

where love itself
as a form of ideal milk
bounces
in the tremors 

of the bad oats
re-      wilded and 

extracting inebriat-
ions from the violin 

monks emerged
from dark cavities of white 

hot peppers scattered
fresh in the gutters
after microscopic parades 

every time     evening
inclines towards you

 

 

 

Ian U Lockaby is the the author of Defensible Space/if a crow— (Omnidawn, 2024), and A Seam of Electricity (Ghost Proposal, 2025). Recent work can be found in Fence, West Branch, Noir Sauna, Washington Square Review, Poetry Daily, etc. His translation of Mexican poet Diana Garza Islas was recently published by Carrion Bloom Books. He edits the online journal mercury firs and lives in New Orleans.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

Tuesday poem #657 : Jamella Hagen : Shiny Silver Train

 

 

Some nights
lately
when I try
to work 

my heart
is caged
in a Soviet-era
subway car 

travelling
deep underground
at high speed
noisily. 

You want
efficiency?
asks the mouth
of the dark tunnel; 

meanwhile,
little steel wheels
screech and grind
against the track. 

I cover my ears,
it’s not enough.
But I suppose
the engineers 

weren’t wrong.
We are getting
somewhere
after all, 

and fast—
we’re almost
to the next station
which could double 

as a bomb shelter
should we need one 

and the longest
escalator 

in the world
will carry us
into daylight.

 

 

Jamella Hagen’s first collection of poetry, Kerosene, was published by Nightwood Editions and her second collection, Perfect Weather, is forthcoming with Gaspereau Press in spring of 2026. She teaches English and Creative Writing at Yukon University, and is an affiliate poetry editor with the Alaska Quarterly Review. Her poetry has won The Fiddlehead’s Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize, and has appeared in Best Canadian Poetry. Recent work has appeared in Ploughshares, Canadian Literature, and The Globe and Mail. She lives with her eleven-year-old son, Rowan, on the traditional territory of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council in Whitehorse, Yukon.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan