POETRY

rain brings the angler fish

east winds rattle panes
brittled by brackish salts

typhoon rage-mists
at youth's passing.

i gnaw on my cache of traumas
lick like heat swallows, skin

chanting to myself, this is this is this
is this is the outside battering in.

The Fiddlehead No. 285 - Autumn 2020

Grotto

Pain of release,
is worth a thousand haters

mothballs, humidity
hang in heat fill; broken generator.

Whizz-whirr of insects,
at worst tilted by staccato pops.

We scratch surface until wounds burst,
her touch is cold against my socks.

Sap weeps from tall serrated sheaths
aromatherapy, in disguise;

our hands, stained red with grease
sticky with the tar of their lies.

Blink
and the Bay recedes
molten ice, choppy green;

holds enough plastic to gut a fish,
weaned on a diet
spoilt milk, benzene.

Winner: Vallum Award for Poetry 2019
Presented by Vallum Contemporary Poetry.

select poetry