Webbed lines frame perma-etched bluish-black bags
under her baby blues,
Every waking hour a nod,
neck snaps -
Rage at the moonlight
that seeps through the delicate lace.
She draws the curtains.
She sleeps on her side, back straight, knees drawn -
eyes blink open, shut, in rhythm to the
tock, tock
of the grandfather clock standing sentinel
outside her bedroom door.
Shadows play tag across the […]
At Peter’s Meats, and his brother Mike’s Bakery,
the two families are not just making old-fashioned,
choice cuts and tasty pastry behind the counters,
but combining DNA with pinches of sugar and juicy pork loins
to give their customers front-of-house service
the chain grocers can only hope to hire.
Handsome football and soccer star sons practice the
art of the knife behind […]
They are uniformly cute
behind their work shift carrels
but all their girlish austerity
can’t hide another dress-code
detail, one unique flaw each:
hairy arms, lisp, giant ass,
dead eyes, connect-the-dot moles.
Checkouts 1 to 10 would light up,
give your bags express line treatment,
for a compliment about
deeper qualities discovered,
a moment of eye-contact
small talk between scanner beeps.
~ Jordan Trethewey
Jordan Trethewey is a […]
Happy Poetry Month! April is National Poetry Month in Canada, a time when new poems take root and sprout, regardless of the weather outside. This year’s theme “Climate Change” challenges poets to explore how climate change affects you on both a personal and global level.
Three ways to celebrate National Poetry Month:
1. Write a poem. Or […]
Off the fire road gravel
the twisted pine roots
grasp gray limestone
through a dusting of dead needles.
Two hikers sweat and slog
into cool cerulean blue.
Ridges fringe the lake.
A toy boat plies the waters.
Glaciers cling to distant peaks,
glisten in the summer sun.
Two lovers toe to toe
on a carpet of heather,
glacier lilies, Indian paintbrush,
split-leaf annika, marigold,
powder-blue butterflies.
But when the storm […]
