love
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Beauty Is Fleeting
I had a lovely beauty mark on the knuckle of my right hand. My whole life I secretly admired it, along with a soft brown spot along the base of my palm. I imagined that if a palm reader were reading my palm they would point these two spots out as my sun and moon,… Continue reading
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Fast and Late Poem about Utterson, Ontario
Utterson was unassuming? It was the Muskokas but not THE MUSKOKAS. But you were golden enough as it was, your slicked body slipping through the dark lake that gave birth to you over and over as you wiped down your face and said “The water’s fine” Later you would take magic mushrooms around the fire… Continue reading
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Sheba
Sheba is my sister. She’s older, but we’ve never noticed. We always stayed up late together and laughed until we cried before she moved out. When she left, I saved up all my funny stories and told them to myself until she’d come home one weekend, full of her own funny stories. She is warm… Continue reading
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Walking In April
Crocus and snowdrops are the suckling pigs this spring, coming up fat and hot in the April sun. I watch as a squirrel carries in his mouth the lifeless body of a bird, deflated like a month-old balloon. He didn’t make the kill, that’s obvious—it’s just some poor old sparrow that died his own way… Continue reading
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Singing Infants and The Last Song
I’ve been thinking lately of a connected sequence of things, the first being, that Naima, now two months old, has begun to sing. She shows a strong preference for the following songs: Wild Is The Wind by Nina Simone (but sung by me)The Littlest Birds by The Be Good Tanyas (but sung by me)The Wind… Continue reading
children, dailyprompt, family, grief, journal, life, love, memoir, mother, motherhood, music, relationships, singing, womanhood -
Growing Old
Gardenia Are the whitest white you’ve ever seen, Except for the hairs escaping my brain To surface slowly on my head Like the last ever flowers Of a dying earth. Continue reading
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Never Come Empty-Handed, and Other Life Lessons
I don’t know where I truly learned it from, although I originally attributed the gracious wisdom to my Persian father and my categorically Mediterranean mother…but having now known them in later life, I don’t think this was their strong suit. Perhaps they picked up flowers once or twice, to impress, but my dad showed up… Continue reading
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The Ninth Month: A Prayer To My Unborn Baby
In my ninth month of growing you, Naima, I begin the return to myself. Your mother has been walking through dust so that men mistake her for a fallen city. You don’t yet know what a mother is. I am the first god you will have, but only accidentally, and then you’ll have more and… Continue reading
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Third Trimester Exhaustion Setting In.
I begin to set expectations of coconut water that are just unreasonable. I check the nutritional information before every glug, meditating on the word “electrolytes” like one might mediate on Om Mani Padme Hum. In the name of potassium and magnesium, bless it to my body I pray. Glug. I begin to feel my heart… Continue reading
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He Knows Good Fruit
This is an appreciation post for the man who buys me good fruit. I used to believe that a man who knew how to pick out good flowers was rare: squeeze the rose, check for slimy leaves along the stem, nothing dyed blue (or worse: rainbow)…It turns out the real heroes are the men who… Continue reading
About Me
A poet living in Ontario. Mostly works of memoir and poetry that focus on motherhood, womanhood, and relationship to self.