Poem after a line or two
by Paige Ackerson-Kiely


I never wanted
to stop,

the heart runs warmer,
colder still

, crude fashion-worn

to leave this crowded street,
administering wind

the starkness of glaciers;
adjudicate,

held in your pitchfork,
mouthing kerosene

, puns






To pick, the raw skin of being


each confession an island
surrounded by mercury,

delectable and fabled,

we cling to love
for trouble's sake,

compress
, the work of hands

no measured depth to proverbs;
remember,

an army and its captors,

free verse
is never free; always

at a cost,

no stopping place; no city
or even country,






A gesture, made of endings,


flickering; to bargain once
against the car crash,

north wind, a pesky empress,

in the beginning, no absolute
or baby hold,

Winnipeg, she whistles,
Poukeepsie-made,

brokered confusion; name so much,
destroyed so much to keep it,

popular within itself,
the rage;

an ornamental, pause, hammock

a sacred, drinking-still; alone,






Marginalia,


a proclamation, dated; wish
for wings that work,

this hotel; you
are sitting on the bed,

the walls the soft disease
of colour, hospitals, scrubbed

molecular, down; were we,
walking side by side

; I'm not sure where

no surface as expected,
author;

asking
do you

love me, do
you love me,

bracing, afraid; already,
answered and aware,


© rob mclennan 2011