10-1-2024
E. McGregor
HOW I WAS TAUGHT
when i say / love i don’t
define the variety / that is spineless
or the type / that heats or
even the nonspecific / sort that gets
pitched around at / persons we don’t
even recognize like / some category of
totalizing cuddle when / i say i
love you i / mean i exist
hiding behind the / door with my
chloroform rag and / this roll of
duct tape i / love you when
you are unmoving / cannot slip from
me i love / you so considerably
i will not / shift my eyes
from your hands / i love you
the way i / loved the baby
kittens i carried / around in my
pockets until they / stank and leaked
because it matters / not the damage
or the dishonesties / you fail to
guard i disregard / because i comprehend
necessity to love / you like this
is the only / syntax i recognize
EDMONTON II
Her children are trying to kill her don’t they understand how
to stay out of the way the gaze of men the hands of men
unseen insistent will always find an opening
theragetheragetheragetheragetheragetheragetheragetheragetheragetheragetherage
the rage
the range
the rain
their age
her hands, her aching eyes, her empty
mouth
everything is under water because
she holds it down
CIMETIÈRE DE SAINT-BONIFACE
Winnipeg in winter. Winnipeg up to your knees stripping over stones that mark the
ones you want where? waits and doesn’t. The stones weather and whither the line’s
wither there you find what you want but don’t they don’t care weren’t waiting
for you these stones laying lines.
Winnipeg whither in winter stones weigh the lines lay you down. Winnipeg in winter
has weight. It pushes your weak-kneed withering want deeper down. Stones
tripping up to your weak knees laying your whether lines. The ones you
want lither lay in weather wait but don’t.
Winnipeg in weathers the lither lines lay stones while you want and wait and
want and wait and want and wait withering whether the ones you want don’t
wait stones don’t dither lay weather. Whither the ones you want tripping
stones lay wither don’t wait.
-from What Fills Your House Like Smoke, selected by Fall 2024 PoemoftheWeek.com Guest Editor Hollay Ghadery.
E. McGregor is a Euro-Settler/Métis writer currently living in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in numerous magazines including Room, The Dalhousie Review, CV2, The Fiddlehead, and others. She obtained a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia in 2022. What Fills Your House Like Smoke is her first poetry collection.
