Tuesday poem #673 : Frances Cannon : Litmus test

 

How are you doing, humans? 
Did you know that litmus is made from lichens? 

We all gather in a coffee shop and pretend to work,
alone together in our procrastination.  

Rage is all the rage. While traversing a zebra crossing,
I’m nearly hit by a car, on purpose, by a hetero family 
with two kids in the backseat. The father 
rolls down his window and shouts
            WHY ARE YOU SO SLOW?
Great example to set for your kids, Daddy. 

A huge German Shepherd runs at me in the woods—
I pick up my little mutt to protect her 
as the big dog leaps up to attack.
The shepherd’s owner sees me and yells,
            WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM? 
I have no answer for her, too confused 
by the source of her anger.  

In other moods, life’s perfect—at a literary event
in an old church that smelled of wood smoke, 
ghosts, and dead mice, I wonder 
what the Baptist founders would think 
of two lesbians cuddling and doodling 
in a stiff wooden pew 
while listening to satirical, secular poetry. 

I accidentally tell my new girlfriend I love her 
by describing a dream in which her face drifted apart, 
one feature at a time, floating outwards. 

I gather monthly with a moon coven
to throw shit into the fire, tell secrets, and complain about men. 
One friend calls in from Bolivia; her pixelated face 
an uncanny backdrop to the flames. Our hushed confessions 
are interrupted by the neighbors’ dance party—
a group of raucous, drunk, joyous men. 
The one secret I don't voice to my witches: 
I would rather dance next door.  

Franky (Frances) Cannon is a writer, editor, educator, and artist based in Edinburgh, Scotland and Burlington, Vermont. She is the Reviews Editor for Poetry Wales, an editorial reader for The Kenyon Review, and an affiliated scholar at Kenyon College, where she recently completed the Mellon Science and Nature Writing Fellowship. She has an MFA in creative writing from Iowa and a BA from the University of Vermont. She is the author and illustrator of several books: Walter Benjamin Reimagined (MIT Press), Fling Diction (Green Writers Press), Willow and the Storm (Green Writers), Tropicalia (Vagabond), The Highs and Lows of Shapeshift Ma and Big-Little Frank (Gold Wake), Sagittaria (Bottlecap), Predator/Play (Ethel), Uranian Fruit (Honeybee), and Grotto, (above/ground). She will have four books published in 2026: Bitten by the Lantern Fly (Ethel);  Queer Flora, Fauna, Funga (Valiz), Adventitious Buds (Green Writers) and her novel Vernal Thaw (Set Margins').

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan