the lowering of ears
Published in Vallum Magazine 14:2, LIES & DUPLICITY
October, 2017
Thirty thousand locks, like colonies of commas.
All those pockets and roomy pauses,
where our words refuse to fit.
Every question is as boundless as a shark-eye.
Each parenthesis a fishhook—
the worm, your furrowed brow.
I ask trivial things about the art scene in Calgary.
Avoiding her name like nettles, you concede:
Performing in snow and bleary brownstones.
Each description is dipped in duplicity.
Curls still swirl as swallows to the ground,
making islands for the dust mites.
Discarded DNA is raising Avalon.
We are constant barbers, mowing down reminders.
Sweeping away our growing pains.