09-10-2024
Tara Borin
DESIRE PATHS
In the long absence
of light,
a husky’s howls drive us
from our singular
cells to trace paths
pressed in snow:
they bisect the frozen river,
vacant lots,
the barren school field—
all roads lead
to the Pit.
Cold air smokes
as we pull open the door.
Hard to heat a room so big
in weeks of forty below—
we keep our toques on,
learn to flirt in our parkas,
dance in our winter boots.
Held in perpetual
Christmas lights’ glow,
curtains drawn against the street,
we pull hands from pockets
to lay bare our secrets
like dark gems.
They glint among small change,
crumped General Store receipts,
bits of loose tobacco—
we palm them across the bar,
leave them
at the bottle-lined altar
in exchange for an ounce
of forgetting
swirled golden in a glass.
Here is where we find
the shortest distance
to each other:
bar top, schnapps sticky,
plywood dance floor
that feels like it could give
at any moment,
the house band a jukebox
onstage.
Last call crush,
we open our arms,
make love to the room,
tip the bartender
and stumble into the street,
faces turned up like children
to catch whirling stars
on our tongues.
NIGHT JANITOR
Hears God
in the electricity,
keeps
religious pamphlets
in the pockets
of his insulated coveralls.
When the waters rise
in the basement
he whispers a prayer, then
hides the mops.
Each night he sifts
through the contents
of the dustbin:
condom wrapper
beer caps
damp mitten
plastic straws
cigarette butts
empty chip bags
beaded earring
catalogues each sin,
slips it
into a hole
in the drywall.
REASONS
We drink because the sun never sets or
because it never rises.
To find love, distorted by the empty bottle’s lens.
To hush the heart.
To soothe unwritten stories.
We drink the wounds of our parents
and of their parents
and theirs.
We drink to dull the throb of an abscessed tooth.
To stop our hands from shaking.
Because it’s happy hour.
We drink without even having to think about it,
Because it feels good
to lose control,
feels like regaining it.
We drink to see the sky shift above us and
feel the earth wheel beneath our feet.
We drink our youth until it’s dry and then
we drink to all the ends.
Our wins and losses—
they taste the same.
To you who would judge us, and you who would join us
and you who have already gone.
-from The Pit selected by Fall 2024 PoemoftheWeek.com Guest Editor Hollay Ghadery.
Tara Borin is a queer, nonbinary settler poet and writer originally from London, Ontario. They have lived in the traditional territory of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, Dawson City, Yukon since 2005. Their debut full-length poetry collection, The Pit, was published by Nightwood Editions in March 2021. Their poetry has been anthologized in the League of Canadian Poets Feminist Caucus in Conversation chapbook (LCP Press, 2022), Resistance: Righteous Rage in the Age of #MeToo (University of Regina Press, 2021), and Best New Poets in Canada 2018 (Quattro Books), as well as published in literary journals online and in print. Tara is the 2022 winner of the BC and Yukon Book Prizes Borealis Prize: Commissioner of Yukon Award for Literary Contribution. Tara is currently working on a queer gold rush novel and their second poetry collection, which focuses on queer parenting, gender stuff, and life in the North. When they’re not writing or wrangling their three kids, Tara loves to read, go for river walks with their dog Winston, play Stardew Valley, and obsess over Our Flag Means Death.
